The farm was in Wycomb in the Midlands about an hour west of London.
Callum listened patiently, and when Gannon was done, he put down his tea mug with a clack on the kitchen counter. He folded his arms.
“Lying about the dead FBI director. They’re all mad now. Just mad. They’ll do and say bloody anything. And even the press doesn’t care? I knew it was heading this way. I worked for a contract company for over ten years, but it just got to be too much. Just bedlam on every level. Anyway, ready to see the stuff?”
They went out the front door of the damp little stucco house and walked along a field with two fat red cows in it toward a concrete barnlike building. As they came around its corner, Callum’s son was kicking a muddy soccer ball off the side of it.
Inside, there were milking stalls and an office with a window. Callum led them into the office and clicked on the light and closed the door. He opened a large steel locker in the corner.
“I think I was able to get everything you asked for.”
Gannon looked at the night vision goggles. The two Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns.
The oiled black pistol he lifted looked almost like a Colt M1911 .45 automatic but the barrel was too small.
“MAB?” Gannon said, squinting at the markings.
“Yes, it’s a French company. Fifteen in the mag and one in the pipe. A pistolet automatique très bon.”
“What is it? A thirty-eight?” Gannon said.
“Nine millimeter,” Callum said.
“Ah, of course, the metric system,” Gannon said. “And that was the box truck we passed on the way in?”
“Yep. Rented on the sly just like you requested. So it’s all good, yes?” Callum asked.
“Yes, it’s good, Callum,” Gannon said with a nod. “Very, very good.”
Callum went to the computer on his desk and clicked at the keys.
“Screw me, you’re right. Here it is in the Daily Mail,” he said. “‘Messerly announces newest leak is a major one. Tomorrow night, the people of the Western world will learn what their governments are supposedly doing in their name.’ End quote. Listen. They’re speculating there’s evidence of illegal arms trading, drug smuggling, satanic shite, pedophilia, you name it. And that many brand-name multinational corporations might be involved. A bunch of major banks.”
“I told you Messerly’s about to blow the sewer wall,” Gannon said. “And fifty years of the rankest filth and corruption the world has ever seen is going to come a’ flooding down Fifth Avenue and Downing Street and the Champs-Élysées.”
“And you’re saying your FBI friend, Reyland, is going to try to grab Messerly’s data tonight to prevent it from coming out?” Callum said.
“Yes,” Gannon said. “That’s why I’m here.”
“You’re going to stop him from stealing it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Gannon said. “I haven’t thought that far ahead. But I’ll think of something.”
“But why?”
Gannon thought of Sergeant Jeremy. His starched shirts. His kindness. What he had done for him.
Hair actually stood up on the back of his neck as he suddenly remembered the title of the sermon the good sergeant had never gotten to deliver.
God Has a Mission for You.
“Because I have to,” Gannon said.
“But you have that bag of money,” Callum said. “Why not take off? Why not go fishing forever?”
Gannon laughed. Ruby had said almost the same exact thing to him at the airport in the Dominican.
Before she had unexpectedly kissed him goodbye.
He gave Callum the same answer.
“But I am going fishing,” Gannon finally said with a smile.
He thought of Reyland.
“Tonight, I go for Moby Dick,” he said.