Stealth

by Stuart Woods

  “What about it?”

  “If we stay there will we end up as sex entertainment for a bunch of guys at the embassy?”

  “We will not. I have ordered it so, and I have a gadget that detects the presence of surveillance equipment. I used it in your bedroom.”

  “In my bedroom?”

  “Look, Stone, we are aware that you have attracted the attention of the world’s three most important spy agencies, if we leave out the Chinese. Do you think that any one of them would hesitate to wire your home for audio and video, if they felt it served their interests?”

  “You have a point,” Stone replied. “Thank you for bringing the equipment.”

  “Your entire house is clean, as far as I can tell.”

  “Good.”

  “Is anyone following us?”

  “Now? We’re on the motorway.”

  “Do you think those three incapable of tailing you on a superhighway?”

  “I suppose I don’t,” he replied, checking his rearview mirror. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Keep checking,” Holly said.

  “Why would they want to follow us?”

  “If not you, then me.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Of course I care. Suppose you drive carelessly, cause a fender-bender, and it turns into an altercation. Do you want to see that on CNN?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “I’m certain I don’t want to see that,” she said firmly. “When I get back I’m faced with a national campaign, and I don’t want the nation to witness me punching some jerk’s lights out.”

  “So, you’re not worried about being the victim of road rage, but the perpetrator?”

  “I have a temper, and when you combine that with certain skills . . .”

  “I must remember not to annoy you.”

  “Always a good policy,” she said.

  “Are you smiling?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Just checking.” He looked into the rearview mirror again. “There’s one of those big Mercedes vans back there.”

  “A Sprinter?”

  “That’s the one. It was back there last time I checked, too. It hasn’t gained on us.”

  “Assume it’s following us then, and be careful.”

  The van stayed there all the way to the Connaught, then it parked half a block away. Holly checked in, and they were escorted to her suite. Stone liked it better than the ones he was accustomed to.

  “Can I use this when you’re not here?”

  “Imagine this headline: SECRETARY BARKER’S LOVER STASHED IN STATE DEPARTMENT’S LUXURY LONDON HOTEL SUITE.”

  “Gotcha. I’ll get my own suite.”

  “Didn’t you buy a London house from Felicity a couple of years ago?”

  “Yes. It’s being redecorated now, which is why I didn’t take you there. Next time.”

  “That reminds me. I have something for you.” She went to her suitcase and came back with a State Department envelope, sealed with wax, the old-fashioned way.

  “What’s this?” Stone asked.

  “I asked our ethics review board at State to consider the matter of the house I’ve been living in for the past two years, the one you gave us. They have determined that the department using such a residence for a secretary while she is fucking the gifter is ‘ethically questionable,’ as they so delicately put it, so they’re giving it back to you. The documents are in the envelope.”

  Stone scanned them. “These make it seem as though the transaction never took place. Okay. So you’re moving out?”

  “Certainly not. I’m very comfortable there. Apparently there’s no ethical problem if I’m fucking the owner of the house I live in.”

  “I find that baffling.”

  “The federal bureaucracy at its most discerning. There’s a property tax bill in there, too, overdue. The department, in its confusion, never paid them.”

  “Swell, I’ll fax it to Joan for payment.”

  “The good thing about all this is that I found out how really sweet you are, when you proposed such a thing. You did yourself a lot of good there, buster.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him, and one thing led to several others.

  * * *

  —

  Stone called Lance.

  “Yes?”

  “Scramble.”

  “Scrambled.”

  “Holly and I drove up to London earlier today, and we were apparently followed by a white Mercedes Sprinter all the way to the hotel. Do you have an opinion on which of the relevant intelligence groups is behind that?”

  “Not us,” Lance said. “Could be either of the others—or, perhaps more likely, the State Department.”

  “They have people who do that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Should I do anything about it?”

  “What would you do?”

  “I don’t know, let the air out of their tires?”

  “That would be fun, if it’s the Russians, less fun if it’s the Brits, and no fun at all if it’s State. By the way, are you in State’s suite at the Connaught?”

  “We are.”

  “Are you participating in the making of a sex video for their benefit?”

  “Holly says all that is switched off, and she has a detector that confirms it. I watched her wave it around.”

  “Nevertheless, you should be careful about what you’re waving around,” Lance said.

  “I shouldn’t trust Holly to turn it off?”

  “You shouldn’t trust those people in the van to turn it off.”

  “That’s if they’re from State.”

  “Behave as if they are, and you won’t have to watch the tape on the Internet. Goodbye.” Lance hung up.

  “Holly?” he said.

  “Mmmmfh?” she replied into her pillow.

  “Do you trust your people not to record our activities here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I saw to it, early on, that they’re scared shitless of me.”

  “Oh, good.”

  48

  The Russian embassy sent a car for Roger and Jennifer. Upon arrival it was driven into an underground garage before the door opened, and they were directed to an elevator.

  “A precaution,” Jennifer said. “They don’t want anyone photographing your arrival.”

  “Who would care?” Roger asked.

  “Your former employers,” she said. “Don’t be naïve, Roger. You must always be aware of your surroundings and circumstances. The Russians admire such caution.”

  They were met on the ground floor of the embassy and escorted into what must have once been a ballroom. Roger reflected that the Russians didn’t have much use for ballrooms these days. “I was expecting a bigger crowd,” he said, “but there are no more than thirty people here.”

  “I told you, it’s all family. All these people work in intelligence in the embassy complex and have high security clearances—as do we, incidentally.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Right after you were cleared in Crimea.”

  Alex spotted them from across the room and approached. “Good evening,” he said, embracing both. “Roger, I hear you are driving a very elegant new car.”

  “I am,” Roger replied, “and I thank you for anything you might have done to make that possible.”

  “I only make Jennifer possible,” Alex replied. “She does the rest.”

  “Then thank you for Jennifer.”

  “Oh,” Alex said, reaching inside his jacket. “I have something for you—a little gift.”

  Roger had thought he would produce a gun, but instead he was handed a Russian diplomatic passport. He looked inside and found his photograph, a
pparently taken in Crimea, and the name “Sergei Ivanovich Ostrovsky.”

  “It is a mark of our faith in you, Roger, that you should own this. If you should ever have to disappear from England or from anywhere else, thoroughly destroy all your documents and use this, anywhere in the world. We will also be supplying you with a Russian driving license and other personal papers, including an appropriate birth certificate. Among the other materials is a personal history, which you must immediately memorize, in case you should ever be interrogated by unfriendly entities.”

  “Thank you again,” Roger said.

  “I understand from your records that you speak some Russian?”

  “Enough to order dinner and vodka, but not to converse fluently.”

  “Beginning tomorrow, you will undergo an advanced course in our language, and your professor will be Jennifer, who is superbly qualified.”

  “Why would I need the language?”

  “It’s like the passport, for use if you should have to run. Also, I should point out that my colleagues tend to view with suspicion operatives who are not conversant in Russian.”

  “I see.”

  “Come, now. It’s time for you to meet some very important people.” In short order, Roger was introduced to the station chief for Russian intelligence, the Russian naval attaché, and the Russian ambassador to the United Kingdom and their wives. At dinner they were all at the same table, being serenaded by a small string orchestra, along with a zither, followed by a pas de deux by ballet dancers from the Kirov company, in St. Petersburg.

  Much vodka was consumed, and some of the diners were moved to sing along with the orchestra. Several were inspired by the dancers to engage in athletic Russian choreography, with much clapping from their audience.

  It was after midnight before Roger and Jennifer could make their way to their car and return to the flat.

  * * *

  —

  Stone and Holly were returning from dinner at Harry’s Bar, when his phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Scramble,” Lance said.

  “Scrambled.”

  “Have a seat and make yourselves comfortable. I want to show you something.”

  They did so, and an image appeared on the iPhone screen of a large room with tables and diners and a string orchestra.

  “Do you see him?” Lance asked.

  “See who?”

  “Brigadier Fife-Simpson. Wait, I’ll zoom in on his table.

  “Got him,” Stone said, “and that’s his girlfriend, too. Where is this happening?”

  “At the Russian embassy in London. All the participants are Russian intelligence, and the brigadier and his lady are at a table with the local station chief, the naval attaché, and the ambassador. This is very significant. It indicates that they place a high value on Roger, probably higher than he understands. Just a minute.” Lance backed up the video a few minutes until Roger and Jennifer were speaking to a man who took something from his pocket and handed it to Roger. At the appropriate moment, Lance froze the images and zeroed in on the object. “That,” he said, “is a Russian diplomatic passport with Roger’s photograph in it and the name ‘Sergei Ivanovich Ostrovsky.’ The Russians don’t hand out those as party favors, so our boy is now, as our Southern friends might say, ‘in high cotton.’”

  “How on earth did you get these pictures?” Stone asked.

  “The embassy underwent some renovations last year, and that gave us the opportunity to install the necessary state-of-the-art equipment. Astonishing quality, isn’t it?”

  “It certainly is.”

  “By the way, while you two were dining at Harry’s Bar, two men in head-to-toe black duds and hoods visited your suite and discreetly ransacked it. I expect they were traveling in the Sprinter that tailed you to London earlier today. They would probably have installed audio and video equipment, but we dispatched a maid to the room with fresh towels, to rout them, so you may feel secure now.”

  “Thank you very much, Lance,” Holly said. “Now you may switch off your own surveillance equipment so that we can have some privacy.”

  “Of course,” Lance said. “Consider it done.” He hung up.

  “Do you think he switched everything off?” Stone asked.

  “Probably,” Holly said. “Let’s make it very dark in here, though.”

  The two of them went around the bedroom, checking that all the curtains were drawn and shades lowered and night lights extinguished, Holly used her detection device, with negative effect, then they got naked and hopped into bed.

  “Isn’t darkness wonderful?” Stone asked. “I like feeling my way.”

  “I like it, too,” she said.

  49

  Lance Cabot sat at his desk and looked at stills of the video taken the evening before at the London Russian embassy. His secretary announced Bruce Winn, an Agency analyst on the Russian desk.

  “Come and look over my shoulder,” Lance said to Winn, who did so. Lance held the magnifier with one hand and pointed with the other. “We know that these three men are the station chief, the naval attaché, and the ambassador, all with their wives.”

  “Yes, Lance, that’s correct.”

  “But who is this man?” Lance asked, pointing at a middle-aged male at the table, apparently unaccompanied.

  “I confess he is unfamiliar to me,” Bruce replied.

  “I want you to run this through the facial identification software and see if we can make him.”

  “Right away,” Bruce replied, then left the office.

  * * *

  —

  Three hours later, Bruce Winn revisited Lance.

  “Did you make him?” Lance asked.

  “Yes, but not where we expected to. We ran him against every employee of Russian intelligence known to us, also through the Russian navy and army, and got nothing, so we had to go random, run him against all known faces in Britain.”

  “And?”

  “We found the face among those attending a convention of rare book dealers in Brighton, two years ago.”

  “And who is he?”

  “His name is Wilfred Thomas. He has a rare-book shop in Burlington Arcade, London, and he is also a bookbinder, very expensive.”

  “I know Burlington Arcade well, and I think I know the shop, too. What do we know about Mr. Thomas?”

  “He is British, sixty-two years old, widowed four years ago, wife died of natural causes. He attended Harrow and Oxford, where he read history and languages.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Lance said, “among them Russian.”

  “Right. Something else interesting: he is the third son of the Duke of Kensington, who is the third-largest property holder in London, after the Duke of Westminster and the Cadogan Estate. His title, which he rarely uses, is the Earl of Chelsea.”

  “You’re right,” Lance replied, “that is interesting. Now go back and explore connections between Thomas and Jennifer Sands, the lady with Fife-Simpson.”

  “Yes, sir.” Bruce departed.

  Lance got his magnifier and looked again at the faces at the table. He thought that two of the diners bore an odd resemblance to each other.

  Bruce Winn came back later in the day, looking pleased with himself.

  “Tell me,” Lance said.

  “Wilfred Thomas and Jennifer Sands’s father, Elihu Sands, known as Eli, were lifelong friends and shared rooms at Oxford. They both met their wives at Oxford and Jennifer’s mother got pregnant while still a student. That’s all perfectly straightforward, but their history contains a rumor.”

  Lance smiled. “Don’t tell me. Thomas fathered his friend’s girlfriend’s child.”

  “That is the rumor,” Winn said, “but I can’t prove it.”

  Lance handed him the photograph and the magnifiers. “There’s your proof,” he said. “Look at those
two faces, Wilfred Thomas and Jennifer Sands. They have to be closely related.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Winn said.

  “So, Thomas came to Oxford and got bitten by the Communist bug, probably courtesy of his favorite don, who, I’ll bet, taught Russian.”

  “And Sand’s girlfriend got bitten by Wilfred Thomas, with Jennifer as the result. I love it.”

  “So do I,” Lance said, “but I don’t know if it means anything for us. Let’s just keep it in mind, for the moment.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll revise the files of the relevant parties.”

  “Stay with the rumor theory, for the time being. Let’s see what else emerges. It would be interesting to know if Jennifer knows who her father is, and if Eli knew.”

  “I think that would have to be a job for operations,” Winn said. “We’re unlikely to find that information in a file or a book.”

  “I believe you are right,” Lance said.

  * * *

  —

  When Winn had gone Lance placed a call abroad.

  “This is Dame Felicity,” she said.

  “Good day, Felicity, this is Lance.”

  “Why, Lance, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “It would seem that both our services have taken an interest in Brigadier Fife-Simpson.”

  “Oh?”

  “Certainly, and you are well aware of that, so let’s not be coy.”

  “How may I help you, Lance?”

  “I believe it might be in our mutual interest to share our findings with each other.”

  “It might make for a more economical operation, as well.”

  “Ah, I see we’re on the same page. I propose that you meet with our operative, perhaps over the weekend, and that the two of you pour out your hearts to each other.”

  “Let me guess: The operative in question is Stone Barrington?”

  “Convenient, isn’t it, since you are close, ah . . . neighbors and you will probably both be in residence at Beaulieu this weekend.”

  “Quite convenient,” Felicity replied.