Part 40 (1/2)

”That bloke is a b.l.o.o.d.y legend,” she said, wonder in her voice.

”I knew he had a lot of connections, but I didn't know he qualified as a legend.”

”He was offered the directors.h.i.+p of central intelligence at one time; turned it down and went to NYU, but word is, he kept his hand in. Once you've been at that level in the agency, you don't just get put out to pasture.” She whipped off the motorway, made a left, drove another half a mile, and turned onto a smaller road, keeping her speed at what Stone figured was about twenty miles an hour more than the car was capable of on that road.

Stone hung onto the door handle and tried not to look at the winding black tarmac rus.h.i.+ng at him. Dino, on the other hand, seemed perfectly awake.

”Looks like everybody knows what's going on here except you, Stone,” he said.

”Oh, I think you've explained it to him very well, Dino,” Carpenter said, whipping around a hairpin turn. ”You missed your calling; you're wasted as a policeman.”

”Don't you believe it,” Dino replied. ”I wouldn't get mixed up in your business for anything. You can never trust anybody.”

”Not a bad policy,” she replied. ”Is it any better on the NYPD?”

”Marginally,” Dino said.

”Where are we going?” Stone asked.

”Right up there,” Carpenter replied. They had emerged from a stand of trees onto an open, rolling plain with few trees. Ahead of them a mile or so, at a crossroads, was a three-story stone building, which got larger fast. Carpenter skidded into the parking lot, which was nearly full, and got out of the car. ”Come on,” she said.

Stone saw two men on a ladder stringing a cable from a utility pole on the road to a corner of the building. He looked at the sign: THE BREWER'S ARMS, it read. He followed Carpenter inside.

53.

THEY WALKED UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR of the country inn, past a guard, and into a roomy, two-bedroom suite, which contained half a dozen men, most in their s.h.i.+rtsleeves, and several pieces of electronic equipment-radios, computers, and two large, flat-screen monitors. Thick wires ran from the equipment out a window, where Stone had seen the two men stringing wire, and he could see a small satellite dish mounted to the windowsill.

”What's happening?” Carpenter said to one of the men. ”Oh, this is Barrington and Bacchetti; they're with me. Gentlemen, this is Plumber.”

”We're just about set up,” Plumber said. ”We're expecting satellite contact any moment, and we've got great weather for it.”

”What have you done with the two subjects' homes?”

”We couldn't get anything decent with sonic equipment,” Plumber said. ”They both live in official housing, and double glazing was installed a few months ago, so we can't get anything off the gla.s.s. We've tapped both phones from the exchange, but since they're both at work, we're not getting anything.”

”Eyeball surveillance?”

”Nothing within five miles,” Plumber replied. ”We figure that when Cabot arrives in the area he'll canva.s.s the neighborhood, looking for anything that might be surveillance, so we're going to rely on satellite, until dark. After that, we'll have taxis with local numbers painted on, but we'll keep our distance. We're going to place satellite tracker marks on both subjects' cars, so we needn't stay within sight.”

”Where's Mason?”

”He's running the on-ground operation; he'll be in touch when something happens.”

”Anything else?”

”Bad news; Portsmouth let us down.”

”What?”

”Something about a suspect merchant s.h.i.+p in the harbor; they've put all their people and equipment on that.”

”Do we have enough resources on the ground here to cover both subjects?”

”Maybe; that's the best I can tell you.”

”Isn't there anything else we can draw on?”

”No. Another team is on its way to Scotland, looking for a suspected terrorist who is supposed to be arriving in the Clyde on a tanker.”

”s.h.i.+t,” she muttered.

”Satellite's up,” a young man at a computer station said.

Everyone gathered around him. The image on the big monitor was of a building and a carpark. ”Eastover internal security gave us the position of the two subjects' cars.” He moved the cursor to a small car and clicked on it: an A appeared on the car's roof. He moved the cursor to another, larger car and clicked again. A B appeared on the car. ”A is Morgan, our male subject; B is Carroll, our female. The equipment will move the ID letter with the cars, so we won't lose them in traffic.”

”How about the houses?” Carpenter asked.

The tech tapped some more keys, and the screen divided into thirds. ”Now you can see both Eastover and the two houses,” he said. ”Neato, huh?”

”Stop speaking American,” Carpenter said.

Plumber spoke up. ”Internal security at Eastover is tracking both Morgan and Carroll inside the building. They'll know if either tries to take something out.”

”Tell them not to stop either one,” Carpenter said. ”I want to bag Cabot and find out from him who his buyer is.”

”Righto.”

”Well,” Carpenter said, ”we've nothing to do until the end of the workday, when our two subjects will leave the building. We might as well order some lunch.” She went to a desk and found a room-service menu.

By half-past five, they were ready for some action. Stone was reading an elderly copy of Country Life, and Dino was in one of the bedrooms, glued to a cricket match. Carpenter merely paced.

”We've got movement,” Plumber said. It was one minute past five-thirty, and people were streaming out of the Eastover building.

”Typical civil servants,” Carpenter said. ”Leaving on the stroke of quitting time.”

”We can't identify individuals by satellite, but look, A's car is on the move. There-so is B's.” The cars pulled out of the carpark and turned in opposite directions.

A cellphone rang, and Plumber answered it. ”Righto,” he said, then hung up. ”We've got word from internal security that both subjects have left the building.”

”Were they carrying anything?” Carpenter asked.

”A wore a loose raincoat, and B had a bakery box, looked like a cake.”

”Did they search them on the way out?”