Hot Pursuit (18 page)

HOLLY WAS GONE
when Millie woke up, and after breakfast she busied herself with moving into the suite. The maids had just left after changing the bed and cleaning when her cell rang. “Hello?”

“It’s Ian. Sleep well?”

“It’s one of the things I do best.”

“Anything new from the FBI?”

“Yes. They were unable to match the photograph of Moe with any existing face in their database, but they came up with two drawings of how he might look now. I showed them to Holly Barker last night, and she believed she recognized one of them as someone she saw at a party in Washington on the night of the inauguration of the president. He may be an official at either the Saudi or the Dahai embassy in Washington. It’s being checked out.”

“I hope that’s true—it would be very helpful.”

“What did your people come up with?”

“Nothing on Moe. However, I’ve been chatting with some of our people who have served in Dahai in the past, and one of them provided an interesting rumor.”

“I love a good rumor.”

“Well, hang on to your hat. The rumor is that a favored woman in the sultan’s harem gave birth to twin boys around thirty years ago.”

“That works, doesn’t it?”

“It does. Apparently, there was great excitement surrounding the births. Some adherents of Islam believe that twins are a special gift from God and that they have unusual powers.”

“What sort of powers?”

“I don’t know, and I haven’t been able to find out.”

“Does Dahai keep birth records?”

“Yes, but we don’t know yet if members of the sultan’s household would be registered. It’s being checked. Another thing—the woman who was the mother was Egyptian and had very light skin. Most people took her for a European.”

“This all fits with the boys from Eton,” she said, “and with the special transportation provided for them when they left. Surely not even a sultan would send a large private jet for non-royals of no particular distinction. But if these boys are his sons . . .”

“Yes, it all ties in very neatly, and it’s not the sort of thing one could make up, is it?”

“What we need now is an asset in the sultan’s household. Does MI6 have one of those?”

“If we did I would deny it.”

“Are you denying it?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t tell you anything, does it?”

“I suppose not.”

“I believe the next step is to find out if your people down at that place in Virginia have such an asset.”

“If they did,” Millie said, “I think their attitude would be much the same as yours.”

“You said your boss was an old Agency hand—maybe they’ll tell her.”

“She left this morning to fly with the president to Paris, Berlin, and Rome.”

“I believe they have telephone service on Air Force One, do they not?”

“I’ll call her. You go and rattle the cage of your tech guys. I want to know if they were able do anything with that photograph.”

“Roger, over and out.” Ian hung up.

Millie called Holly and got her voice mail. “Call me, as soon as you can,” she said.

Less than an hour later, Holly called. “We’re in the motorcade to the Élysée Palace,” she said. “What’s up?”

Millie passed on the rumor regarding the twins. “Can you find out if the Agency has an asset in the sultan’s household? We need to know a lot more.”

“I’ll call Lance,” Holly said. “Gotta run, we’re passing through the gates of the palace.” She hung up.

Millie had nothing to do for the rest of the day, so she went shopping again.

Two hours later, while sharing the backseat of her car with half a dozen carrier bags, her cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“I have Lance Cabot for you,” a woman said. “Can you accept the call?”

“Yes.”

“Is that Millicent Martindale?” a smooth voice asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Are you on a secure line in a secure location?”

“I’m on my White House cell phone in an embassy car, in London,” she replied. “Is that secure enough?”

“That will do,” Cabot said. “This is the first time we’ve spoken, is it not?”

“It is.”

“I trust it won’t be the last. Tell me about this rumor you’ve heard. It’s from our friends at MI6, I believe?”

“It is.” Millie explained about the twins.

“I don’t believe our British friends have enough imagination to invent that,” Lance said. “I’ll see what assets we might have in place.”

“You might check with former or retired assets,” Millie said, “since the births would have been around thirty years ago.”

“Very good. Now, about the stooge you call Moe: we have ascertained that the photograph—the one with the beard—may be of the chargé d’affaires at the Dahai embassy in Washington. His name is Ali Mahmoud, and he’s quite the social animal around town.”

“That’s very interesting,” Millie said, “because the twins, while they were at Eton, received regular funds from an account at the Devin Bank in London belonging to a Sheik Mahmoud, of Dahai.”

“Very interesting, indeed,” Lance said. “Perhaps you should ask your friend at the Bureau to begin surveilling him.”

“I’ll do that.”

“You should ask him for maximum surveillance, which means by every available means.”

“I’ll ask for that.”

“When do you return to Washington?”

“I don’t know. That will depend on what I can get done here.”

“It sounds as if you’re getting quite a lot done. When you come back, perhaps you should come out to Langley for lunch and meet some people.”

“Thank you, I’d like that.”

Lance hung up.

“Denny,” she said to her driver, “I’m starving. Where can I go for lunch?”

“Do you like Italian food?”

“Very much.”

“Well, then, it’s La Famiglia.” He made a quick U-turn and aimed at Chelsea.

DENNY PULLED UP
outside a modest-looking restaurant near World’s End, in the King’s Road. “La Famiglia,” he said. “I booked you a table in the garden. Alvaro Macchione, the owner, died a few months ago, but it’s still up and running, and the food has held up, too.”

“Thank you, Denny.” He opened the door for her, and she got out and went inside. She was wondering how chilly it might be in the garden, but she was led through the restaurant and into a space with a glass roof and heaters. It was quite comfortable. The menu was very large, but she was hungry and got through it in a hurry. She ordered the bruschetta and the roasted wild boar. She had never before had that.

The place was only half full, and she didn’t feel crowded, so she called Quentin at home.

“Hello?” he said sleepily.

“Aren’t you up and about yet?” she asked. “I’ve already consulted with MI6 and the CIA.”

Quentin groaned. “You’d better have something good,” he said.

“How about this: Moe—Harold Charles St. John Malvern—has been made.”

“You’re kidding me. How did you do that so fast?”

She explained the process she had been through. “His name is Ali Mahmoud, and he’s the chargé d’affaires at Dahai’s embassy in Washington.”

“Jesus, that’s troubling,” Quentin said.

“You have a point—too close to home.”

“Damn straight.”

“All the more reason to start surveilling him pronto. I’d like maximum surveillance, please, of every sort. I’m told the FBI is good at that.”

“We are indeed. I’ll have to get Lev Epstein’s approval, but he’ll go for it.”

“Will you get back to me the minute you’ve talked to him? I need to know that the work is under way.”

“All right. He gets in early, so I’d better get to the office. I’ll call you.” He hung up.

She had barely hung up when some Americans were seated next to her—two men and a woman. They seemed to have had a couple of drinks before arriving, and it was now one-thirty
PM
. They immediately ordered a bottle of wine, and continued to talk loudly, especially a red-faced man who looked as if he’d done a lot of drinking in his day—maybe on this day.

She finished her lunch and asked for the check. Then she heard a familiar name.

“So,” the younger and beefier of the two men said, “how are you going to handle Barrington?”

“I have already handled him,” the other man said, and they laughed loudly again.

Millie paid her bill, then went back into the restaurant and found the headwaiter. “Could you please tell me the names of the people at that table?” She nodded toward the garden door. “I think I may know them.”

The headwaiter consulted his reservations book. “The table was booked in the name of Reeves,” he said. “I’m not sure which gentleman he is.”

“Thank you. It was an excellent lunch.” She went back to the car, where Denny was waiting with the door open.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“National Gallery? Tower of London? Anything touristy you haven’t done?”

“Just back to the Connaught, I think.” She dialed Holly’s cell number. It was answered immediately.

“What have you to report?” Holly asked.

Millie told her about the conversations with the new men in her life. “Quentin has to get Lev’s authorization to set up the surveillance—they’ll get back to me. And Lance will call me back when he’s looked into the sultan’s household in Dahai.”

“Good. We’re making progress.”

“Something odd just happened.”

“Uh-oh.”

“At lunch today I overheard some Americans talking at a table next to mine.”

“What about?”

“Barrington. I suppose that could be Stone?”

“It’s not a very common name. What did they have to say?”

“One of them asked the other, ‘What are you going to do about Barrington?’ And the other replied, ‘It’s already done.’ Then they had a good laugh.”

“Any idea who they were?”

“The table was booked in the name of Reeves.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell with me. Write down a number.” She dictated. “That’s Stone’s cell number. Call him and tell him about it. I’m too busy right now.”

“Where are you?”

“At the Hôtel de Marigny. It’s sort of the guesthouse for the Élysée Palace.”

“What’s it like?”

“Palatial. Got to run.” She hung up.

Stone, Dino, Viv, and Pat were finishing lunch at the Waterside Inn in Bray, a spectacular French restaurant in the village of Bray on the banks of the upper Thames River, not far from Cliveden, when his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Stone Barrington?”

“Speaking.”

“My name is Millicent Martindale. I work for Holly Barker.”

“You’re a lucky woman, then,” he said. “How is Holly?”

“She’s very well. She’s with the president in Paris right now, and she asked me to call you.”

“Oh?”

“Are you still in England?”

“At the moment I am in surroundings so French that I could doubt that.”

“MI6 said you were in the country.”

“How the hell would they know that?”

“Apparently, they know when you enter and leave Britain, but I understand that you flew yourself this time, so somehow you slipped past them. Someone at a country hotel spotted you—a retired MI6 officer.”

“Well, that’s fairly creepy,” Stone said.

“It gets creepier. I was at lunch today at a restaurant called La Famiglia . . .”

“I know it well.”

“. . . and I was seated next to two men and a woman—all Americans—and I heard your name mentioned.”

“In vain?”

“Maybe.” She told him about the overheard conversation.

“Well, he’s wrong, I haven’t been taken care of. Any idea who they were?”

“The table was booked in the name of Reeves. That’s all I know.”

“Swell,” Stone said with some feeling.

“I hope that’s not too upsetting. Holly felt you should know.”

“And I’m glad you called. Thank you very much. Can you describe the two men?”

“One was in his mid to late thirties, very beefy-looking. The other was, maybe fifty, florid complexion.”

“I believe I know them,” Stone said. “How long ago did you see them?”

“I left twenty minutes ago. They had just sat down for lunch.”

“That’s good to know,” Stone said.

“I’m based at the American embassy for a few more days. Is there anything I can do for you in London?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll be in touch if anything comes up.”

She did, and Stone wrote it down. He hung up. “Another coincidence,” he said to his party.

“Reeves again?”

Stone nodded. “This time in a London restaurant, sitting next to one of Holly Barker’s people.” He told them about what she had overheard.

“You’ve already been taken care of?” Dino asked. “Is that what Reeves said?”

“Apparently. Do I look taken care of to you?”

“Nope.”

“Then that must lie in my future,” Stone said.

“I think you’d better be careful until we’re out of the country,” Dino said. “And right now, I’m going to have a look around this place.”

“I think you should call Sir Martin and tell him that Reeves and Keyes are at La Famiglia, World’s End, Chelsea.”

“Right.” Dino got up and left the table.

“Well,” Stone said, having some more cheese, “I’m not going to let this ruin a good lunch.”

QUENTIN PHILLIPS
got into the office an hour before hardly anybody else did, and he found Lev Epstein at his desk.

“Good morning,” Quentin said.

Lev looked up. “What the hell are you doing here at this hour, sucking up?”

“I suck up only when absolutely necessary. I’ve heard from Millie Martindale in London: Moe has been made and located.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not. Our lab couldn’t match the snapshot to anybody in our database, but they did two drawings of how he might look now. Holly Barker made one of them as somebody she saw at an inaugural party. His name turns out to be Ali Mahmoud, and he’s the chargé d’affaires at the embassy of Dahai.”

“
I
know that son of a bitch! I’ve had dinner with him at a big party!
He
is Moe?”

“He is also Jacob Riis and Harold Charles St. John Malvern.”

“Let this be a lesson to you on the importance of even tiny pieces of evidence. If that snapshot hadn’t been taken fifteen years ago, we might never have found the bastard.”

“The White House has requested maximum surveillance on Mahmoud around the clock. Shall I move on that?”

“What’s your idea of maximum surveillance?”

“Eight four-man teams working around the clock, a dozen different vehicles and disguises for them, full electronic surveillance on office and home, fixed and mobile.”

“And how much is that going to cost?”

“Half a million dollars for the first week, maybe three hundred thousand a week after that. Can you authorize it?”

“I can
get
it authorized.”

“Today?”

“This morning!” He opened his laptop and started typing. “I’m calling an agency-wide emergency conference, everybody from assistant director up.”

“Hang on a minute, Lev.”

Lev stopped typing. “Don’t slow me down.”

“We promised the White House absolute secrecy, closely held. You’re talking about at least three dozen people when you include deputies and secretaries.”

“My boss is in South America,” Lev said. “There’s nobody between me and the director.” He picked up his phone and dialed a number from memory. “Good morning, sir, it’s Lev Epstein. I’m sorry to have to trouble you at home.” He didn’t apologize for the hour. “I need an immediate appointment with you. It’s an emergency. Let me brief you when you come in. How long? Thank you, sir.” He hung up. “You and I are seeing the director at eight-thirty. We’ve got less than an hour to put our briefing together.”

“Right.”

“You put together a list of agents and equipment you need, and a list of tech people, as well. We’ll meet in my conference room at ten
AM
. Oh, request a fully teched-out conference room in the basement, in my name. You ever done a stakeout, Quentin?”

“No, sir.”

“It’s going to bore the ass off you.”

—

MILLIE WAS STRETCHED
out on the bed in her suite, trying to make sense of a cricket match, when her cell went off. She muted the TV. “Hello?”

“It’s Quentin. Listen fast, I’m on the run.”

“Go.”

“Lev and I just met with the director, and it’s a go. We’re starting a meeting of the team in five minutes. They’ll be on the job by noon. It’s a maximum effort.”

“Go, then!”

“Bye.” He hung up.

Millie punched the air. “Yes!” she screamed. She called Holly.

“Yes?”

“Big news—the Bureau will be all over Moe by lunchtime in D.C. Maximum effort.”

“That’s great news, Millie. Congratulations on moving it so fast. Right now, I’m half dressed for a state dinner that started ten minutes ago. Gotta go.” She hung up.

Millie called Ian Rattle.

“Hahlew,” he drawled.

“The FBI has just uncorked a maximum-surveillance effort on Moe. I thought you and Dame Felicity would like to know.”

“She will be very pleased to hear it,” he said, “as am I. Will we get to watch any of this in progress?”

“Ian, it’s surveillance, not a raid. What’s to watch?”

“Oh, all right. When you do make a move, please remember that Dame Felicity becomes orgasmic when watching an operation in real time. It makes her feel omniscient, I think.”

“Whatever turns her on,” Millie said, then hung up.

—

AFTER DINO
had cased the neighborhood to his satisfaction, checking out the rowers, the fishermen, and the swans on the Thames, they got into Pat’s borrowed Jaguar and left the restaurant. Stone drove quickly, turning down country lanes, seemingly at random.

“You going anywhere in particular?” Dino asked from a comfortable rear seat.

“Looking for a tail,” Stone said. “It bothers me that Reeves says I’m already taken care of—makes it sound like I missed it.”

“I’m going to take a nap,” Dino said. “I’m unaccustomed to port at lunch.” He thought about that. “I could get used to it, though.” He lay back on the cushioned headrest and closed his eyes.

Stone loved these country roads: they were beautifully engineered, perfectly drained, and always in good repair. He kept an eye on the GPS navigation display to be sure he was always headed in the general direction of Cliveden.

“You drive beautifully,” Pat said. “Especially right now—and with the steering wheel on the wrong side!”

“Thank you,” Stone said. “I hope we don’t meet too many vehicles coming the other way. My instinct would be to go left.”

“And the instinct of the oncoming driver would be to go right,” she replied. “And that would not be a good thing.”

Stone narrowly missed a baker’s van going the other way.

“Stone,” Pat said, “what do you think Paul Reeves meant when he said you had already been taken care of?”

“I don’t know,” Stone said. “And I don’t want to know. But I have a feeling I’m going to find out.”

He drove on.

Back at Cliveden Stone was given a hand-delivered note on very heavy paper. He read it and turned to the others. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t be with you for dinner, and I’ve been asked not to tell you why. I hope you will forgive me.”