Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 11

Jen Draper entered the room like she owned it. She turned everyone else into background. Koenig hadn’t seen her for a year, but she hadn’t changed. She was still tall and lithe and still looked capable of beating men twice her size to a bloody pulp. Even though she’d been on secondment from the CIA, she’d been the best marshal he’d ever worked with. She was the toughest in the unit, the best shot in the unit, and she was the most resourceful. They’d hated each other immediately. Koenig because he didn’t think she was a team player, Draper because she’d been forced into a babysitting job she thought beneath her. To be fair, it was beneath her. Looking after Koenig was a punishment. She’d done some shady stuff while serving overseas. Enhanced interrogation, black sites, extraordinary rendition, probably more she hadn’t told him about. She’d tried atoning. Became a whistleblower. All that achieved was the revocation of her overseas status and a stateside posting. Her superiors thought she would get bored and resign. They were wrong. She was too stubborn. But when Koenig disappeared, they were able to sack her for gross incompetence. She’d had one job: evaluate and monitor him. She couldn’t even tell her boss where he was. But instead of sulking and becoming a pain in the butt, she founded a private intelligence company, and because most of the people she’d worked with knew what had really happened, a lot of Pentagon contracts were thrown her way.

Or that’s what she’d thought.

The CIA weren’t stupid. They didn’t want to burn an asset like Draper. Instead, they made sure she got a bunch of government contracts. Told her if she did a good job there’d be plenty more. But government contracts are like crack. Once she had them, she couldn’t do without them. She had employees, and they had families and mortgages and school fees and medical bills. Turned out she was on the same leash as him, their futures tied together. Like conjoined twins who didn’t get on.

Two men followed Draper into the room. They were both in suits. One was clearly a cop. He was too angry to be anything else. Wagstaff and Mallinson immediately looked to him for instructions. Probably their lieutenant. He wasn’t happy. His chest was puffed out. He was breathing hard, like he was blowing out candles on a birthday cake. Koenig thought he was ready to hit someone, and he probably didn’t care who.

‘Lieutenant Glenister,’ Wagstaff said.

‘I’ll deal with you two clowns later,’ Glenister snapped. ‘What the hell were you thinking, turning off the sound like that?’

Wagstaff mumbled something, but Glenister wasn’t interested in hearing from them right now. He would later, though. Koenig thought Wagstaff and Mallinson were going to wish they’d called in sick today.

The other guy wasn’t a cop. He reminded Koenig of himself. He walked into the room, then became forgettable. A grey man. Koenig did it himself whenever he was somewhere new. He faded into the background. He could be in a diner all night, and if someone asked the waitress what he looked like, she wouldn’t be able to remember. There was a skill to being the grey man, and the second guy had it in spades. Everything about him was nondescript. His clothes, his hair, the way he stood. It was all just . . . blah. Carefully cultivated blah. Koenig was impressed. He hadn’t seen someone this good for a long time.

Koenig had expected Draper, and he’d expected her to be accompanied by a more senior cop. Someone trying to find out what the hell was happening. He hadn’t expected a grey man.

Lieutenant Glenister wasn’t interested in being the grey man. He wanted to be seen. He wanted everyone to know how angry he was. Koenig sympathised with him. But only a little. Glenister didn’t know what Koenig knew. Didn’t know what had happened in the internet café. All he knew was what Koenig had done to his guys. And instead of being charged with murder, a man and a woman had walked into his precinct like they had every right to be there.

‘I have a dead cop, a cop who’s gonna need round-the-clock care for the rest of his life, and another who looks like she’s had an asshole carved into her forehead. And you got the balls to come in here and tell me that not only is this piece of shit not spending the rest of his life sucking dicks in Sing Sing, he’s walking out of here like nothing even happened?’

‘I think we all know something happened, Lieutenant Glenister,’ Draper said. ‘The question is, are you part of it?’

‘Part of what, lady?’

Koenig winced. Draper didn’t like being called ‘lady’. Men who called Draper ‘lady’ ended up with swollen testicles. How he knew this wasn’t important.

But instead of punching Glenister in the balls, she said, ‘You were listening to the first part of Mr Koenig’s interview, Lieutenant. You know exactly what.’

‘If you believe that East Coast Sweeney crap, then I got a bridge to sell you,’ Glenister said. ‘Because the East Coast Sweeney is a bunch of bullshit. And this asshole ain’t walking out of here because he says different.’

Draper removed a laptop from a tan leather briefcase. It was a MacBook Air, all sleek and shiny. She opened it and said to Lieutenant Glenister, ‘Before I show you what’s on here, there are a couple of things you need to understand.’