Hot Pursuit (14 page)

MILLIE WAITED
with Holly in a closed road behind the American embassy for the president to come down.

Holly looked around her. “The last time I was here someone had driven a delivery truck into this alley and unloaded a large crate outside that door down there.” She pointed. “When the bomb it contained went off, it blew a chunk out of the building and injured people in every direction. There were a couple of dozen dead, too.”

Millie didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t respond.

Her phone rang, and she answered it. “Yes?”

“It’s Quentin,” he said.

“Pretty early in the morning in California, isn’t it?”

“I’m back in D.C. I took the red-eye, and I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“Anything new?”

“We met with the head of the business school at UCLA yesterday afternoon.”

“Did you get anywhere?”

“We didn’t have a name or a photograph, but when I described Riis and his taste in fashion and cars, the president’s executive assistant, who had been a student at the time, remembered him, and they even had a record of him. He was registered under the name of Harold Charles St. John Malvern, and his record showed him as having studied at Eton and Oxford. He was at UCLA for a little more than a semester, right before he turned up at Berkeley as Jacob Riis. He was British and something of a ladies’ man, it seems. Our office out there is trying to run down some of his female acquaintances, and, overnight, his record at UCLA was scrutinized. He was highly recommended by the head of his college at Oxford, the headmaster at Eton, and two members of the House of Lords—all forged, of course, but beautiful forgeries that impressed our lab. The letterheads were real, and the signatures appeared to be genuine, until the gentlemen denied any knowledge of Harry, as he was called.”

“Good work!”

“It’s ongoing. I’m going to get some sleep now, and I’ll call you when I have more. Bye.”

A gate at the other end of the alley opened and, led by two Metropolitan Police vehicles and followed by as many black SUVs, the president’s limousine pulled up by the door where the bomb had been placed. Holly and Millie waited by the car until the president emerged a minute later, talking on her cell phone, and they followed her into the car.

Millie sat back in her jump seat and was impressed by the foot-thick car doors and the two-inch-thick glass in the windows. She had never felt safer. The president continued her phone conversation until they had driven through an alley behind the anonymous building that housed MI6 and had been greeted at the door by Dame Felicity Devonshire. Only then did she hang up her phone and introduce Holly.

“Holly and I have met, of course,” Dame Felicity said. “How are you, my dear?”

“Very well, Dame Felicity,” Holly said. “May I introduce my colleague Millicent Martindale?”

Millie was greeted warmly and followed the group into an elevator that opened into an elegant foyer that opened into Dame Felicity’s large office, which Millie thought looked more like an Oxford library than a workspace. A gleaming burled walnut table in the center of the room had been set for lunch with handsome silver and beautiful china, but they were first shown to sofas and chairs across the room.

Chitchat was kept to a minimum. “We’re anxious to hear about any progress on your investigation of the Eton twins,” the president said, “and, of course, we’ll bring you up to date on our investigation.”

“Madam President, immediately after I received your telephone call and your request, I assigned various groups to the task,” Dame Felicity said. She opened a file folder and consulted her notes. “The twins led a sequestered existence at Eton,” she said. “They showed no interest in athletics at the school and devoted themselves to language studies and reading. They were cared for by a well-tailored gentleman, not British, but a reasonable facsimile, who took rooms at a local inn, where he received the boys on a weekly basis. They always returned with fresh haircuts and, we suspect, their blond hair retouched at the roots.

“On the pretense of an audit of the Devin Bank by the Bank of England, records were unearthed of the money that flowed through the bank to pay the boys’ expenses, which were considerable. The funds were transferred from the Bank of Dahai, in the small sultanate of the same name, which is sandwiched between Yemen and Oman, on the southern border of Saudi Arabia. The funds originated from the account of one Sheik Hari Mahmoud, a shadowy figure who hovered around the edges of the sultan’s court, and who was said to own more camels and goats than any man in the kingdom save the sultan himself. The source of this display of wealth was, of course, not livestock but oil, with which the kingdom is richly endowed.

“On the day the boys left Eton, we believe them to have been taken directly to Heathrow Airport, from whence a large private aircraft belonging to the sultan departed for Dahai. There is no record with customs and immigration of the boys having been seen at Heathrow, but they have not been seen anywhere since. An inquiry at the London embassy of Dahai met with blank stares and a denial of any knowledge of the twins. That is where we are at the moment, but we have assets in Dahai, and the investigation is being pursued there.”

“Thank you, Dame Felicity,” the president said. “Holly, what have you to report?”

Holly recounted the investigation to the point where the head of the economics department at Berkeley was interviewed. “I believe my colleague Millicent has later information to report.” She turned to Millie and waited.

“Madam President, Dame Felicity,” Millie began, “I have had the most recent report from our FBI agents in California only a few minutes ago. The agent in charge of the investigation, Special Agent Quentin Phillips, informs us that a man using the alias of Jacob Riis was hired by the economics department of the University of California at Berkeley to teach a class on the economics of oil production in the Mideast. He subsequently left without giving notice, and an investigation into his background and references conducted by the university yielded only that his name and credentials were false.

“Armed with only a physical description of the man, Special Agent Phillips called on the head of the business school at the University of California at Los Angeles, a member of whose staff recognized the description of the man in question and identified him as one Harold Charles St. John Malvern, a British subject and a student at UCLA fifteen years ago, who arrived with references from Eton, Oxford, and two members of the House of Lords, and who spent less than a full academic year at the university before disappearing. The FBI has since confirmed that all of these references were forgeries, albeit very good ones. And that is where we stand at the moment. I regret that this information is so fresh that we have not yet compiled a written report, but you will have one before the day is out.”

“Thank you, Miss Martindale,” Dame Felicity said. “It appears that we all have an intriguing mystery to solve. Now, may we have lunch?” She moved to the table, and her guests followed.

The conversation at lunch was fairly inconsequential, but Millie found it fascinating. She did not speak unless spoken to.

STONE AND PAT
were downstairs at nine
AM
sharp, and Tony met them with the Jaguar and turned over the keys. “It’s keyless entry, Mr. Barrington, and there’s a start button, but your foot must be on the brake. The knob on the center console is the gearshift, foot on the brake again. The engine is a diesel, and the tank is full. There’s a GPS navigator built in. Would you like instructions?”

“I can handle that, Tony,” Pat said.

Tony handed her some maps. “These might come in handy at times,” he said.

The bellman arrived with their luggage and stowed it in the boot. Stone tipped him, thanked Tony for his help, tipped him, and they drove the car out through a short tunnel into Buckingham Gate. Stone followed the road to Buckingham Palace, around the roundabout, and thence to Hyde Park Corner, from where they headed west.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to make a stop,” Pat said.

“Where?”

“Stonehenge.”

“Put it into the GPS.” She did, and a voice began to speak in BBC English.

“Pat,” Stone said, “I have to ask you something.”

“Anything you like.”

“Is there anything you haven’t told me about Kevin Keyes?”

“A great deal. I’ve told you only the basics.”

“Is there anything else I should know about him that might be relevant in the circumstances?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“It troubles me that he got out of New York and to England so easily.”

“Well, as you said, his name wasn’t on a flight plan. You told the police about eAPIS, didn’t you?”

“What is that?”

“I thought you knew about it. I took care of it before our departure.”

“Took care of what?”

“It’s a sort of registry. You have to notify the government before you leave the country, and you have to list the crew and passengers, their dates of birth and passport numbers.”

“Where did you get my date of birth and passport number?”

“From Joan, where else?”

“And Paul Reeves would have had to file that report?”

“I suspect that Kevin filed it for him, as I did for you. He would have omitted his own name and information, of course, and nobody would know, unless they had a ramp check for documents, et cetera.”

“I’ve never been ramp checked,” Stone said. “How would that go?”

“Officials in the relevant country would ask to see your aircraft registration, airworthiness certificate, radio station license, proof of international insurance, weight and balance calculations, plus your RVSM and MSNP authorizations—those were the papers you signed. They’d also check to see that the airplane’s flight manual and avionics manual were aboard and that you had the required safety equipment—life raft, life jackets, et cetera, and they would check our licenses and medical certificates, in addition to our passports.”

“The only place where anyone showed the slightest interest in any of that was in Iceland, where they asked for our passports, but didn’t look inside the airplane.”

“That is correct. It’s also quite common for general aviation aircraft and crews on the Blue Spruce route not to be checked too closely.”

“So if Keyes wanted to bring a gun into Britain, he wouldn’t have had any problem?”

“Only if they found it during a ramp check. I mean, the authorities at every stop have the right to make you empty the airplane and unpack your luggage, if they want to.”

“Then I’ll just assume that Keyes, wherever he is, is armed.”

“Look, we’ve only set eyes on Kevin once, at the restaurant. You’ve no reason to believe that he’s looking for us, so don’t let it bother you.”

“That’s true, but we’ve seen Paul Reeves
everywhere
, and that bothers me a lot. I can’t help having a bad feeling about this.”

“Stone, I don’t know what to tell you. Do you want to just pack this in and go home? If you want to fly commercial, I’ll arrange for a good pilot to fly your airplane home.”

“No, of course not. Anyway, where we’re going today
nobody
could find us.”

“Oh? Where is that? All I can see on the GPS map is a checkered flag in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s a pretty good description of where we’re going. You’ll see, later in the day.”

—

THEY SPENT
an hour being amazed at Stonehenge, then continued their trip west on surface roads, which were alternately choked and lightly traveled, things improving as they left the tourist attraction behind. They stopped at a country pub and had a lunch of sausages and mash, then continued. The GPS predicted they would arrive at their destination at five-thirty
PM
. Half an hour before that, the roads had dwindled in size until they were down to a single track between high hedgerows.

“What
is
this place we’re going to?” Pat asked, laughing. “Has anyone ever been here before, except farm animals?”

Now and then they had to deal with a car or farm vehicle going in the opposite direction, which involved one of them reversing into a slightly wide indentation in the hedgerows and allowing the other to pass, or wait for a cow to make up her mind about where she was going. Encouragingly, they saw a sign or two for Gidleigh Park.

“What is Gidleigh Park?” Pat asked. “Some sort of tourist attraction?”

“Sort of, if the tourist is very discerning.”

Then they saw an occasional farmhouse and suddenly, they were at a side door of a very large house, in the Tudor style, and their luggage was being taken inside.

Pat peeked into various rooms as they followed their bags down the main hallway, then they were in a comfortable suite. “I think,” she said, “that as hideaways go, this one is top-notch. I smelled something good cooking, too.”

“Oh, they’ve won all sorts of awards over the years, including Best Restaurant in Britain, I think.”

“Did you find this when you were hitchhiking?”

“No, much later. I met the original owners, Paul and Kay Henderson, in London during their first summer in operation, and I’ve been back a couple of times since then.”

“Will we meet them?”

“No, they retired a few years ago. They live nearby but are, apparently, away for a few days.”

They unpacked, and without any discussion, got naked and fell into bed. Soon they were ready for a nap.

THEY WERE BACK
in the motorcade, headed for the embassy, when the president put away her cell phone. “You did very nicely in there, Millie,” she said. “Mainly, you didn’t overdo it. It would have been a big mistake to try and make Felicity think you had more than you did, and to your credit, you stuck to the facts.”

“I didn’t think there was another choice, ma’am,” Millie said.

“Quite right.”

“You managed to keep your mouth shut at lunch, too,” Holly added.

“I had a father who didn’t much like chitchat at lunch. He wanted something substantive from me or nothing.”

“Sometimes nothing is the best choice,” Holly said.

“That was my father’s belief.”

“Is your father still alive?” the president asked.

“Yes, ma’am, and kicking.”

“Retired?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What did he do?”

“He was an attorney and a Republican, pretty much in that order. He clerked for Chief Justice Burger, and during the Reagan years he worked at Defense.”

“During what period?”

“If you’re referring to Iran-Contra, right about then. He knew nothing about it, until it hit the news, and when it did, he resigned and went to a Washington law firm.”

“Which one?”

“Miller, Chevalier, Peeler & Wilson, as it was in those days—Miller and Chevalier, by the time he retired.”

“My grandfather knew Stuart Chevalier,” she said. “They were both friends of Franklin Roosevelt when they were all young lawyers. Chevalier had polio as a child and spent his life on crutches or in a wheelchair. I suppose that helped create a bond between him and FDR.”

“I’ll tell my father about that. He would find it very interesting, if he doesn’t already know.”

“When will we have more on the Three Stooges?” she asked.

“Daily, I hope. Quentin Phillips is working on it flat-out.”

“He works for Lev Epstein?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“He’ll learn a lot from Lev. He was considered a candidate for attorney general. He turned down an offer to head the criminal division of the Justice Department—said it was less interesting than what he’s doing now. It was a smart move, and Lev is noted for smart moves. I might call on him again before I’m done.”

“I’ve met him only once, but he impressed me,” Millie said.

The president was about to speak again when something struck the window on Millie’s side. She turned to look at it and saw a thick liquid streaming down the glass, then there was a faint
whoomp
, and the limousine was suddenly enveloped in flames.

“Nobody move,” Kate said firmly. “Just sit tight, and they’ll deal with it.”

Millie sat tight, willing herself not to open the door and run. Only the thought of what else might be out there stopped her.

There were gunshots now, muffled by the thick body and windows of the car, and then a white cloud surrounded the car and the flames went away. Police sirens and whoopers sounded, both near and far away, but approaching.

The car began to move again. They were in Grosvenor Square, no more than a block from the embassy, and the car bumped over the curb and into the park, swerving to avoid pedestrians. The motorcade left the park at North Audley Street and whipped around the embassy to the rear, where someone opened the door and the three passengers were hustled inside and, followed by four Secret Service agents, into an elevator operated by a marine sergeant. They got off on the top floor, and the president led the way down the hall with long strides into the apartment she was occupying. She walked over to the Grosvenor Square side and looked out the big windows. “Please, Madam President,” an agent said, “step away from the windows. We still don’t know what else might be down there.”

“I’m sorry, Ted,” she replied, stepping back, “that was foolish of me. The rubberneck instinct, I suppose.”

The building was not as soundproof as the limousine, and the noise from outside continued, minus the gunshots.

“Sounds like the firefight is over,” the president said.

The agent stood behind a column and peeked around it at the square. “That’s correct, ma’am, the fire trucks are making the most noise now, but the fire is out.”

“Did you see anything when we were on the ground, Ted?”

“No, ma’am. I was operating a fire extinguisher while others were shooting. I think the car suffered only damage to the paint.”

“It was napalm,” Holly said. “Homemade. They must have dissolved Styrofoam in gasoline.”

“Yes,” Millie said, “I saw it oozing down the window—it was thick.”

The phone rang, and an agent picked it up and listened. “One moment, please. Madam President, it’s Pres . . . it’s the first gentleman for you.”

Kate took the phone. “Hi. I’m fine. Everybody did his job, and Holly, her assistant, and I are safe in the embassy. I don’t know much, except somebody threw a thick liquid at the car, then set it afire. It was all over in a couple of minutes. I’ll call you when I know more. I love you, too.” She hung up.

There was a sharp knock on the door, and two more agents were admitted. “I have a first report for you, Madam President,” one of them said.

The president sat on a sofa and motioned Holly and Millie to do so, as well, then nodded for the agent to continue.

“There were four young men involved,” the man said, “of Middle Eastern appearance. One of them threw an accelerant on the car, then threw a cigarette lighter at it—a Zippo, I believe. The others began firing light machine guns—Uzis. Our people returned fire in kind, and all four of the attackers went down. Three are dead, one is on the way to a hospital.”

“Casualties on our side?”

“Two with non-fatal gunshot wounds, both treated downstairs in the embassy clinic, both will recover quickly.”

“I don’t suppose we know who yet?”

“We may find a note on one of the bodies—otherwise we’ll have to wait for someone to claim credit.”

“Here are your instructions,” she said to the agent. “We will not miss a beat in today’s schedule. Everything will proceed as normal, including my speech tonight. Is that perfectly clear?”

“I’m waiting to hear from our commander on that, ma’am—he’s surveying the damage downstairs.”

“Tell him my order will not change,” she said. “Now, let’s go downstairs. I want to speak to the agents who were wounded.” She stood up and started for the door.

Agents raced to open it for her.