Page 116 of Nobody's Hero

Tas patted his jacket. ‘If they hadn’t found me, I would have made an anonymous call.’

‘We saw through it, Jakob. We saw through everything. Whatever you think is about to happenisn’t.’

‘Is that so?’

‘It’s over. They plan to leave you out here until you turn into air-dried meat.’

Tas laughed. A big belly buster. Probably hurt like a bitch given what else was going on down there. But he laughed anyway. ‘Miss Wexmore said you were funny. But I thought she meant quick or witty.’ He stopped laughing, got all serious. ‘I didn’t think she meant like a clown. Because if itisall over like you claim, Mr Koenig, why the hell did you jump out of the Gulfstream? Why did Miss Carlyle? Why are you bleeding all over my deck?’

Koenig didn’t have an answer. He wished he did. They fell into an uneasy silence. Watched an osprey silhouette above them, waiting for an unwary green sunfish to get too close to the surface. It obviously hadn’t gotten the memo about flights being grounded.

Koenig wondered what Smerconish was doing. Was he watching them? Were there drones in the air right now? F-35s? Had Draper managed to get hold of him? Would it make any difference if she had? He thought not. Smerconish would listen to her as a courtesy, but ultimately dismiss her misgivings. Or maybe he’d even think she was lying. An ill-advised attempt to save her prize asset. He imagined Smerconish found it difficult to trust anyone. When you dealt in lies, that was all you saw. And there’d been far too many recently. Too many secrets. Too many people telling lies and too many people keeping secrets. Draper and Smerconish. Margaret and Carlyle. Secrets and lies. As ridiculous as it sounded, Tas was the only person Koenig could trust right now. He was the only one without a hidden agenda. Which made Koenig think:Why not just ask him?

‘OK,’ Koenig said. ‘I get it. You’ve had some setbacks, admittedly mainly caused by me, but you claim you’re exactly where you want to be. In a boat on Lake Mead with the authorities believing you plan to destroy the Hoover Dam. I don’t think it’s possible, but the idiots in charge won’t take the risk. They’ll blow you out of the water before you get anywhere near it. I think you know this.’

‘You have a point?’

‘More of an observation. Why the grandstanding? Why not do whatever it is you plan to do and get it over with? Why risk the SEALs and the F-35s? When you catch James Bond, you don’t gloat. You don’t stick him in an overcomplicated death trap, then walk off like it’s a done deal. You shoot him in the head, and you keep shooting until there are no more bullets in your gun.’

Tas reached into his jacket, pulled out a cigar case. He turned it upside down and tapped the end. A red-brown stogie slid out. It was eight inches long and thicker than his thumb. Looked like a double corona. He pinched the end, then sliced it off with his punch-dagger. Stuck it in his mouth, then lit a Zippo under it. He sucked until the end glowed brighter than the heart of a furnace, then offered Koenig one.

Koenig shook his head.

Tas took a deep draw. Held it, then blew out a thick blue-grey plume of smoke. He sighed in pleasure, coughed, then went silent. Seemed to be enjoying the cigar and the peace of the moment. ‘I’m no James Bond villain, Mr Koenig,’ he said. ‘But it’s funny you used a movie reference.’

‘It was? Why?’

‘Because I was about to use one myself,’ he said. ‘Tell me, have you ever seenDie Hard?’

Chapter 125

‘Die Hard?’ Koenig said.

‘It’s an action movie,’ Tas said.

‘Iknowit’s an action movie, Jakob. Everyone knows it’s an action movie. There are uncontacted tribes in the Peruvian jungle who know it’s an action movie.’

‘But have you seen it?’

In his pre-drifter days, Koenig had a bunch of 35-millimetreDie Hardfilm cells mounted on the wall of his home office. Cost him ninety bucks on eBay. Came with a certificate of authenticity and Bruce Willis’s supposed autograph. Looked like it had been signed by a toddler. Which, admittedly, didn’t rule out anything.

‘I’ve seen it,’ he said. ‘But unless you want to debate whether or not it’s a Christmas movie, I suggest you tell me what’s on your mind.’

Tas chuckled. ‘You understand the basic premise?’

‘Die Hardisn’t big on allegory. There are no hidden messages. Hans Gruber, arguably the greatest movie villain of all time, takes a bunch of corporate types hostage under the guise of terrorism. John McClane gate-crashes his party when he tries to save his wife. Eventually McClane figures out the terrorism angle was bullshit. Gruber was after the bearer bonds in Nakatomi Plaza’s safe. He wasn’t a freedom fighter; he was just a thief.’

‘Wrong, Mr Koenig,’ Tas said. ‘Hans Gruber wasn’t just a thief; he was anexceptionalthief. Do you want to know why?’

‘Because that’s how he describes himself throughout the movie?’

‘No, the reason he was an exceptional thief was because of the way he constructed the heist. The bearer bonds he wanted were inside a state-of-the-art, high-security vault. You’ll remember it was protected by seven levels of security. Seven locks.’

‘Gruber’s whiz kid was able to bypass the first six, but the last was outside of his control,’ Koenig said, wondering where Tas was going with this. ‘The electromagnetically sealed seventh lock was powered by circuits that couldn’t be cut locally.’

‘That’s right. But Gruber, being anexceptionalthief, had planned for that. By posing as a terrorist from the beginning, he was able to manipulate the FBI into shutting off the building’s power. That deactivated the last lock and opened the vault. He used the FBI’s predictability against them.’

Koenig nodded. Gruber’s master plan was riddled with plot holes, but when a movie was as entertaining asDie Hard, you went along with it.

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