The Final Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page A

police officers, a single photographer and a forensic team in overalls, masks and white latex gloves.
    He crossed the road, threading his way through the cars. Facing him was the concrete phallic symbol that was the Trump World Tower and a skyscraper decorated with a damp and limp German flag: Deutschland's mission to the UN. The Nations' Café was just next door.
    He saw Henning Munchau immediately, earnestly studying the map-of-the-world pattern that decorated the vinyl table top. Funny how easily men of power could be diminished. Inside the UN, Munchau was a player who could stride through corridors, winning deferential nods of the head from everyone he passed. But take him out of the building and he was just another New York suit with a briefcase and thinning hair.
    To Tom's surprise, Henning rose the momentthey had made eye contact, leaving his coffee untouched. His eyes indicated the door:
follow me.
What the hell was going on?
    Once outside, Henning raised his eyebrows, a gesture Tom took a second or two to understand. ‘Of course,’ he said finally. Munchau was one of those smokers who never carried his own cigarettes: he believed that if you didn't buy them, you didn't really smoke them. Tom reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pouch of Drum rolling tobacco – one of the few constants in his life these last few years – inside which was a small blue envelope of cigarette papers, and in a few dexterous moves conjured a neat, thin stick which he passed to Henning. He did the same for himself, then lit them both with a single match.
    ‘Fuck, that's better,’ said Henning, his cheeks still sucked in, refusing to exhale the first drag. He looked hard at Tom, as if seeing him for the first time. ‘It's been a long time. You doing OK?’
    ‘Never better.’
    ‘That's good.’ Henning took another long drag. ‘Because you look like shit.’
    Tom let out a laugh, which triggered a broad Henning grin, the smile that had made Tom instantly like the man when they first met all those years ago. That and the Munchau patois, flawless English with an Australian lilt and the earthy vocabulary to match. Tom had seen it take shape: they had served on the Australian-led East Timor mission together. Their friendship had beenone legacy of that experience. That the Legal Counsel had become that rarest of creatures – a Hessen-born doctor of jurisprudence with a mouth like a Bondi surfer – was another.
    ‘So you don't miss the old place? Working for the family of nations and all that?’
    ‘No, I don't miss it. So, Henning, we're both busy guys. What is it you need?’
    ‘It's about this—’ he trailed off. ‘About what happened here this morning.’
    ‘Yeah, what is all this? I saw the police line and—’
    ‘You don't know? Christ, Tom, all those fat corporate fees and you can't afford a radio? A man was shot here about two hours ago, a suspected terrorist.’
    ‘OK.’
    ‘Not OK,’ said Henning. He exhaled a plume, then checked left and right. In a whisper, his eyes intent, he said, ‘Turns out we got the wrong guy.’
    ‘He wasn't a terrorist?’
    ‘Apparently we killed some pensioner in a woolly coat.’
    ‘What do you mean, “we”?’
    ‘Don't go blabbing a word about this, Tom. I'm serious, mate. Not a fucking word. Media don't know yet.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘The shooter was from our own bloody security force.’
    ‘Jesus.’
    ‘Jesus is right.’ Henning took a long, final drag, sucking the life out of the tiny, hand-rolled cigarette, then threw it to the ground. ‘Just unbelievable bad luck. NYPD Intelligence tipped us off about a suspect who'd been visiting an arms dealer. Dressed in thick black coat, black hat. Which just so happens to be what the old boy was wearing when he went out for his morning stroll.’
    ‘Bad luck all round then.’
    Henning gave Tom a glare. ‘This, Tom, will be the biggest nightmare to hit this place since oil-for-fucking-food. Can you imagine what the