A Death in Sweden(70)

He looked older than in the pictures Dan had seen. He was carrying a little more weight, his hair greyer, but he looked healthy and relaxed, like a man who was comfortable with where he was in life and what lay ahead.

“Are you armed?”

Brabham responded by opening his jacket for Dan to see. Dan walked over and sat on the chesterfield.

Brabham stood and said, “Can I get you a drink? I usually treat myself to a single malt around this time of evening. You’ll join me?”

Dan could see the bottles and glasses on a small table near the desk. He nodded and watched as Brabham walked over and poured two hefty measures. He couldn’t see which brand it was. When Brabham came back he put the drinks on the table in front of the sofa, then moved his chair so that he was facing Dan.

He picked up his glass then and said, “Good health.” Dan followed suit and they both drank. “What’s the aim of all of this, Dan? I ask because, if you thought you were making yourself safe, you’ve wildly miscalculated. Even if you don’t kill me, what you’ve done here today will just make you an even higher priority.”

“That’ll be less of a problem if your operation’s shut down.”

Brabham looked incredulous, as if he were talking to a child, and said, “This operation won’t shut down. If I resign they’ll just replace me. There are people higher up the food chain who want this, who see a need to draw a line under the past excesses of people like Patrick White. Yes, I’m sure he’s painted himself to you as the sheriff, tidying up this town, but it’s his mess we’ve been trying to deal with.”

“Interesting way of going about it.” Dan put his gun on the sofa next to him and said, “But while we’re talking of excesses, you surely know this wasn’t just a response to your people coming after us. It’s about some of your own excesses, about why you sent someone up to Jack Redford’s place.” Brabham raised his eyebrows, feigning surprise, doing a good job of it. “You know what I’m talking about, Bill, I’m talking about your son murdering Sabine Merel and you covering it up.”

There was a flicker of something behind Brabham’s eyes at the mention of Sabine, panic or fear, but then he rallied and laughed, saying, “I don’t know what kind of line Patrick White has sold you, but—”

“We have the tape. Patrick has the tape. You thought you got hold of the only copy but there was another.”

Brabham didn’t respond at first, and in the silence Dan was pretty sure he could hear vehicles approaching outside, too many for it to be just a random car passing.

Brabham smiled weakly and said, “I’m still not doing very well at reading your thoughts, Dan, but I suspect you’ve miscalculated again if you think Patrick’s likely to go public with this tape of yours. He won’t. He’ll use it as leverage, to undermine me and the agency, to shore up his own position. He’ll never make it public because, if he does, he’ll lose that leveraging power.”

Dan nodded. There was a good chance Brabham was right about all of it.

“You still made a mistake when you tried to kill me, Bill. And you made a bigger mistake when you killed my friends.”

Brabham glanced over at the dead guy, and sounded bemused again as he said, “Yes, well, we can all be prone to miscalculations.”

He could definitely hear cars outside now, and said, “Did you call for backup?”

“Reluctantly, yes. We put a call in to the Berlin station. I expect that’s them now.”

Dan felt his phone vibrate and took it out. It was Patrick.

He answered and Patrick said, “Dan, we’re outside. What’s the situation in there? Is it secure?”

“It’s secure. I’m with Bill in his study upstairs. Everyone else is dead.”

“Then I’ll be up shortly. Try not to shoot me.”

Dan ended the call, and in response to Brabham’s look of expectancy, he said, “It’s Patrick. He’s on his way up.”

“What a pleasant surprise—I haven’t seen him in a few years. In fact, it’s been too long.”

Dan didn’t respond, but sipped at his drink and said, “Is this an Oban?”

A door slammed open somewhere down below, followed by the sound of many footsteps, the suggestion of urgency but not high alert.

Brabham looked pleased and said, “Yes, it is Oban. You know your whisky?”

“I know this one.”

“What a shame we couldn’t have shared a glass under different circumstances.”

“The circumstances wouldn’t matter. You’d still be Bill Brabham.”

“Touché.”

Dan looked to the door as footsteps approached and Patrick White appeared, still in his trademark heavy overcoat, looking none the worse for the amount of travel he must have put in over the last few days. He looked at Dan and shook his head, smiling as if at his own folly rather than Dan’s.

“Hello, Bill.”

“Hello, Patrick. You’re looking well. Your new role obviously agrees with you.”

Patrick’s smile dropped and he walked into the room, glancing at the dead body before saying, “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Bill, on so many levels? I don’t just mean Paris. I mean going after assets that served this agency, that served our country, and showed no signs of ever becoming a liability.” As he talked, Dan noticed someone else appear in the doorway behind him, a guy with dark hair, not much older than Dan, looking more like a movie mob boss than someone from the intelligence community. Neither of the other two could see him from there, and Patrick continued, saying, “You’re done, Bill, this is all finished.”