Sidney Sheldon's Reckless

by Tilly Bagshawe

  An image of Jeff Stevens’s face popped, unbidden, into Tracy’s mind.

  “Oh, I do,” she told Sally. “Believe me. I absolutely do.”

  TRACY WAS WOKEN AT six the next morning by a phone call from Greg Walton.

  “We’ve had complaints.”

  Tracy rubbed her eyes. Good morning to you too. “What sort of complaints?”

  “Serious complaints. From the British Home Office. According to them you were uncooperative and obstructive in yesterday’s meeting.”

  “That’s absurd.” Tracy cast her mind back to her conversation with Jamie MacIntosh and Frank Dorrien at MI6 yesterday, trying to think of anything she said or did that might be construed as obstructive. “They asked me to interview a journalist, a contact of Hunter Drexel’s, and I did that. Who complained, Greg?”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It does to me,” Tracy said hotly. “It was Frank Dorrien, wasn’t it?”

  “Like I said, that’s not the issue.”

  “He made it clear yesterday he didn’t trust me.” Tracy could feel her anger growing. “But you know what? The feeling’s mutual. He’s more involved in all this than he lets on. Hunter Drexel doesn’t trust him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Tracy filled Greg in on yesterday’s meeting with Sally Faiers. He was excited.

  “That’s huge, Tracy. Great work. We’ll have the Brits subpoena her phone records.”

  “No, don’t,” Tracy said hurriedly. “Let’s keep them out of this for now. Sally trusts me. If she feels she’s being used or spied on, she’ll shut down. She dislikes General Dorrien almost as much as I do.”

  “Hmm.” Walton didn’t sound happy. “I don’t know about that . . .”

  “You won’t find anything anyway. Hunter Drexel’s a pro. He’s bound to be on disposable phones.”

  “All right. We’ll leave it for now. But stay close to her. And remember, General Dorrien’s on our side. You’re there to find Althea, not to investigate the general.”

  “But what if the two are connected?”

  “They aren’t, Tracy.” A note of firmness had crept into Walton’s voice. He quickly replaced it with a warmer, more flattering tone. “I’ll be sure to tell the president about your great work over there. Believe me, he’ll be delighted to learn that Drexel’s still alive at least. That’s a lot more than we knew yesterday.”

  “Hopefully it’s only the beginning. There’s a lot more I need to do here. Althea’s not part of MI6, I’m sure of that. But . . .”

  Greg Walton cut her off. “Actually, Tracy, I’d like you back in the States by tomorrow, Thursday at the latest.”

  “What? Why?” Tracy was bewildered.

  “Agent Buck has some potential new leads.”

  “What new leads? The best leads we have are right here in London.”

  “Buck will fill you in when you get back here,” Greg Walton said, in a way that made it clear Tracy’s return was a command, not a suggestion. “Like I said, we’re grateful for what you’ve achieved. But diplomatically it’s important you come home.”

  “OK,” Tracy said, deadpan.

  Walton seemed relieved.

  “There’ll be a ticket waiting for you at the BA desk at Heathrow.”

  “Right.”

  “Good job again.”

  Walton rang off.

  Tracy sat in bed for a long time, staring at the phone in her hand.

  Something’s wrong.

  Someone wants me gone.

  Is it General Frank Dorrien? Good old, upright, squeaky clean Frank?

  She started to get dressed.

  GREG WALTON HUNG UP the phone. He was seated in the Oval Office, across the desk from the president; Agent Buck of the FBI sat beside him.

  President Havers looked at Walton. “So he’s alive?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “But we don’t know where?”

  “No, Sir. Not yet.”

  President Havers stared bitterly past his intelligence chiefs to the framed picture of himself on the wall above their heads. It had been taken on his inauguration day, less than a year ago. He must have aged a decade since then, thanks to Hunter Drexel.

  Havers’s reelection campaign would begin in earnest in a few months’ time. Some of his big donors had already written checks. But others, including Cameron Crewe, were hesitating, waiting to see how the Group 99 crisis resolved itself. The situation in Europe was as tense as it had been in decades. The president needed a win and he knew it.

  “What about Whitney? How much does she know?”

  “She knows nothing,” Agent Buck sneered. “She’s a tool. Nothing more.”

  President Havers hoped Buck was right. Tracy Whitney had proved useful in tracking Althea to London and in getting a lead on Hunter Drexel. But her skills of deduction could be extremely dangerous if she wasn’t kept in check. She was already showing an unhealthy interest in the unfortunate events at Sandhurst Academy. Not to mention antagonizing British intelligence into the bargain.

  A secretary stuck her head around the door.

  “So sorry, Mr. President. But I have the British Prime Minister on the line. I don’t think she’s too happy.”

  President Havers sighed deeply. Since the disastrous Bratislavan raid, Julia Cabot was the only friend he had left in Europe. He needed her.

  Turning to the two intelligence officers, he hissed, “Get Tracy Whitney back here. She’s causing too many waves.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Greg Walton stood up. “It’s already done.”

  “And keep her on a tight leash from now on.”

  As Walton and Buck left the room, they heard the president putting on his warmest, most conciliatory voice.

  “Julia!” Havers was practically purring. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  CAMILLA AND RORY DALEY lived in a handsome Georgian rectory on the outskirts of one of Hampshire’s most sought after villages. The immaculate gardens and grounds sloped gently down to the River Test, where generations of Daleys had enjoyed exclusive rights to some of the best trout fishing in the country. Inside, polished parquet floors liberally scattered with antique Persian rugs led into spacious, elegant rooms, with original sash windows, generous fireplaces and traditional English furniture. Two Turner watercolors hung on the drawing room walls, above a Knowles sofa on which two rather scruffy wire-haired dachshunds slept soundly at opposite ends.

  All in all, Tracy thought, it was quite the most charming, upper-class, English country house she’d been in since Gunther was alive. Clearly Captain Bob Daley’s parents were paid up members of the top 1 percent, if not the top 0.1 percent.

  “Are you sure I can’t get you a cup of tea, Miss Arkell?” Lady Daley asked, for at least the third time. Tracy had adopted a perfect, cut-glass English accent and introduced herself as Harriet Arkell, an author, researching a biography on their son. She felt bad lying to the sweet, elderly couple. But she knew that the moment she mentioned the CIA, or the Daleys heard an American accent, they would be on their guard. Years living in England had taught Tracy that the English upper classes were far more forthcoming among those they perceived to be one of their own.

  “It’s very kind of you but I’m fine, thank you,” Tracy said. “I won’t intrude too long. I really only wanted to clear up a few minor points about Bob’s time at Sandhurst.”

  “Of course.” Camilla Daley beamed, her eyes twinkling the same cornflower blue as her country casuals twin-set. She clearly relished any opportunity to talk about her son. “Bob adored Sandhurst. Absolutely loved the place, didn’t he, Rory?”

  “Both times,” the old man confirmed. “As a cadet with the Welsh Fusiliers, and then later as an instructor. I don’t think he missed active service at all.”

  Lord Daley had jowls that quivered when he talked, like a bulldog’s, and pale, rheumy eyes. He seemed older and more tired than his wife. Tracy wondered whether their son’s gruesome murder had hit him harder and fe
lt her guilt at her deception redouble.

  “Did he have many friends at the academy?”

  “Oh, Bob had masses of friends. From school, from the regiment and of course from Sandhurst too.”

  “Anyone who stands out?”

  “Well, yes.” Lady Daley’s face fell suddenly. “Although he probably stands out for the wrong reasons. Poor Achileas.”

  “Prince Achileas? Of Greece?”

  “I daresay you read about him.” Camilla nodded sadly. “He and Bob were great friends. He came here more than once you know. But I’m afraid the poor chap killed himself. We hadn’t the slightest idea he was depressed. It was the same week that Bob . . . that we lost Bob.”

  Tracy’s mind raced. General Dorrien’s words rang through her skull like a clanging church bell: They may have passed on the parade ground. But it was no more than that. They weren’t friends.

  Tracy thought, You little liar, Frank!

  “Achileas was an officer cadet,” Tracy observed. “So he was a good deal less senior than your son. A lot younger too. Do you know how they became close?”

  “Greece,” Lord Daley said wheezily from his chair. “Bob was a classicist, you see. Obsessed with Greece since he was a small boy. He was in Athens, you know, when these cowards took him.”

  “Of course Harriet knows that, darling,” said his wife, rolling her eyes. “She’s written a book about what happened.”

  “I thought she was writing a book about Robert?” The old man sounded confused suddenly. He reminded Tracy so strongly of her father in his later years, it was all she could do not to run over and hug him.

  “I am, Lord Daley,” she assured him. “I am.” Turning back to Camilla she asked, “I don’t suppose you have any photographs of Bob with Achileas?”

  “I’ll have a look.” Camilla frowned. “I don’t think so though. We’re not huge picture takers. And of course, Achileas being a royal and all that. I’m not sure he would have liked us snapping away at him like a pair of goggle-eyed tourists.”

  Any two people less like “goggle-eyed tourists,” Tracy couldn’t imagine.

  “We were so upset though, when we heard what happened,” Lady Daley went on. “According to some of Bob’s friends, somebody broke into Achileas’s rooms after he died and pinched things. Can you believe it? Royal souvenir hunters gone mad. I mean really, who would stoop so low?”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Tracy, suitably horrified.

  Although in fact she could imagine very well.

  CAMERON CREWE WAS JUST stepping out of his home gym in New York after a grueling session with his trainer when Tracy called.

  “Cameron?”

  It took him a moment to place who it was. He hadn’t heard from Tracy Whitney since their dinner in Geneva, much to his disappointment, and didn’t know if he ever would again.

  “Tracy!” he panted, leaning against a wall for support. “What a nice surprise.”

  “Are you OK?” she asked. “You sound like you’re having an asthma attack.”

  Cameron laughed. It was wonderful to hear her voice. More wonderful than it should have been.

  “I’m fine. Just old. And unfit. Where are you?”

  “I’m in London. Walking up Wandsworth Bridge Road, to be precise.”

  “OK.”

  “Listen, I need some advice.”

  Cameron Crewe allowed himself a small smile.

  She wants my advice. She trusts me.

  “Shoot.”

  For the next ten minutes, Tracy gave him an edited version of developments in the Group 99/Althea/Drexel case since they last met. Without divulging anything classified, she gave him a summary of her meeting with Sally Faiers and managed to convey her suspicions about British Intelligence, and in particular Major General Frank Dorrien.

  To Tracy’s surprise, Cameron already knew about the Group 99 hack on the CIA and FBI systems. She kept forgetting that Cameron had also worked with Greg Walton for many years. She wasn’t the only outsider the agency had ever called on for help. But he didn’t know Tracy had traced the hack back to MI6, nor that Hunter Drexel was definitively still alive. He listened intently while she filled him in.

  Finally, Tracy told Cameron about her trip to see Bob Daley’s family.

  “I’d call that serious progress in five days,” Cameron said, when she finally drew breath. “I’m guessing Greg Walton’s loving your ass right now.”

  Tracy said, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

  She explained that the CIA had recalled her to Washington. That she was supposed to be on a plane tomorrow, in fact.

  “I’m telling you, General Dorrien’s gotten to them somehow. He’s behind this. He made some trumped-up complaint against me and now he’s got everyone running scared. But the fact is he lied to me outright about Daley and the Prince not being friends. I know that for a fact now.” She was speaking very quickly, excitedly. Cameron found it hard to keep up.

  Tracy said, “I think he was the one who stole the Prince’s stuff.”

  “Who?”

  “General Dorrien.”

  “I’m confused,” said Cameron. “Dorrien is MI6?”

  “As was Captain Daley.”

  “And you think he stole things from the dead Prince’s room at Sandhurst?”

  “Yes. Including his computer.”

  “And the Prince’s death is connected to Group 99 . . . how?”

  “I don’t know,” Tracy admitted. “But I think Dorrien knows. That’s what I need your advice about.”

  “OK.” Cameron waited.

  Tracy took a deep breath. “I’m thinking of breaking into his house.”

  Cameron started to laugh, but stopped in the face of Tracy’s silence.

  “You’re not serious?”

  “Completely. I break in, find the computer and whatever else it was he took and doesn’t want me to find. And I bring it back to Walton as a fait accompli.”

  “Right. May I suggest an alternate plan?” said Cameron.

  “You may.”

  “Get on the plane tomorrow, come to New York and have dinner with me.”

  “Come on. I really need your advice.”

  “My advice on breaking and entering?” Cameron laughed. “I just gave it to you! Don’t do it, Tracy. What you’re suggesting is utter madness. Walton would hit the roof and he’d have every right to.”

  “But if I found proof Dorrien’s not who he says he is? Prove that there’s a link between Group 99 and Hunter Drexel’s story about fracking, and the Prince’s death, and that Major Dorrien’s involved up to his neck . . .”

  “You won’t find proof!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’ll be arrested, Tracy! Or worse, you’ll break your neck. Either way you’ll cause a major international incident. Look, I hate to be the one to rain on your parade. But really, what the hell do you know about housebreaking?”

  Tracy allowed herself a small smile.

  “Hold that thought on dinner,” she said, and hung up.

  JEFF STEVENS WATCHED FROM the corner of Studdridge Street as Tracy ended her phone call, glanced quickly around her, and hopped onto a number 19 bus towards Chelsea.

  She was wearing skinny black jeans and a dark green sweater, and her chestnut hair blew in the breeze behind her and she stepped up into the bus, flashing her Oyster card at the driver. She looked beautiful.

  Jeff felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest.

  He recognized it as longing.

  “I’m right behind you, Tracy,” he whispered out loud, sticking his arm out and hailing a black cab.

  Waving a fifty-pound note at the driver he said, “Follow that bus.”

  CHAPTER 16

  TRACY’S OLD FRIEND, THE fine-art dealer, Jacob Bodie, had prepped the job for her.

  Thank God for Jacob.

  Now a sprightly sixty, Jacob Bodie no longer stole art himself. It was a very, very long time since he’d broken into a gallery or a pri
vate home. But he’d been the best in his day, and he still worked with the best, thoroughly researching and vetting every job he was involved in. Like Tracy and Jeff, Jacob only ever stole from the underserving: philistines, cheats and hoarders.

  Tracy trusted him.

  “Mrs. Dorrien—Cynthia—always goes out to bridge on a Tuesday night. She leaves the house at six on the dot and is usually back by nine,” Jacob explained to Tracy in his deep, gravelly voice.

  “Usually?”

  “Usually. Come along, Tracy. There are no guarantees, you know that. But that’s a three-hour window for a three-minute job. You go in, get what you need, get out. Simple.”

  Tracy felt sick.

  How many times had she heard that word, “simple”?

  It was what Conrad Morgan had told her before her first job, stealing Lois Bellamy’s jewels from her house in Long Island. She could hear Conrad’s voice now, low and soothing, like a snake charmer’s song.

  It’s ridiculously simple, Tracy.

  But of course it wasn’t. Tracy had come within a hair’s breadth of being caught that night, of being sent back to the Louisiana Penitentiary for good.

  I wasn’t caught though, Tracy reminded herself. I outsmarted the police, and Jeff Stevens too. I’m good at this. This is what I do.

  Jacob Bodie had provided her with a plan of the Dorriens’ modest house, as well as the code to the couple’s safe and burglar alarm, and a copied front door key.

  “How on earth did you pull all this together so quickly?” Tracy asked him.

  Jacob gave a satisfied smile. “I have my ways, dear girl. Although I must say I’m thrilled to have impressed you. It’s not easy to impress the great Tracy Whitney.”

  Tracy wanted to say that the “great” Tracy Whitney had died a long time ago. If she ever really existed. But she didn’t.

  “What about the general?” she asked.

  “He’ll be at the barracks, don’t you worry,” said Jacob. “He’s a workaholic. Almost never gets home before ten.”

  Tracy didn’t like that almost. Not one bit.

  “And this Tuesday he definitely won’t be back early,” Jacob reassured her. “There’s a review meeting for all the senior officers up at the military academy. Dorrien’s leading two of the sessions.”