by Stuart Woods
“Sounds good.”
“And, Peter,” Stone said, “you’ll write or direct?”
“Both,” the boy replied, “though I can see just directing, if somebody comes to us with a good script already written.”
“Sounds good.”
“What’s really good is, Leo showed us Vance’s old bungalow, which has been empty since his death, and he’s going to redo it for us, to our specifications.”
“That sounds wonderful!”
“Yeah, but I don’t have any experience with that kind of space planning.”
“Why don’t you talk to James Rutledge? He was trained as an architect, then he was with Architectural Digest, and now he does just the sort of thing you need. You were at the High Cotton Ideas party-did you like that place?”
“Oh, wow, did I!”
“Well, Jim was the designer on that. Get Leo to send you the plans, then send them to Jim for a look.”
“He’s sending them over today, so I’ll call Jim as soon as we’re back.”
“Can’t hurt to start early.”
Hattie wandered onto the patio, looking sleepy, and sat down.
“Good morning,” Stone said.
“Is it?” Hattie asked, looking at the sky and squinting. “I can’t tell.”
Stone laughed. “Trust me, it is. Are you all ready for your performance tonight?”
Hattie looked alarmed. “I forgot about that. Don’t remind me.”
“Relax, you’ll do fine.”
A waiter appeared and took everybody’s breakfast order.
Steve Rifkin had not slept well. He had doubled his crew for the overnight search of The Arrington’s theater, where the two presidents would hold their joint signing and press conference at ten A.M., and now he was up early and walking around The Arrington’s theater, having a final look for himself.
His search detail leader approached. “Don’t worry, boss,” he said, “this place is clean.”
“We’re missing two bombs,” Rifkin said.
“I understand that, but I don’t think the other two even made it onto the property.”
Rifkin looked around. “All right, seal this place-nobody in here that isn’t essential to the press conference. There’s a list-stick to it.”
“Right, boss.” The man went away to do his work.
Hamish McCallister arrived at the theater, along with at least a hundred other reporters, each with his credentials hung around his neck. He found a seat in the fourth row of the theater, which was a structure half-embedded in the landscape on the north side of the hotel’s grounds. He stood in front of his seat and looked around the big room as his colleagues, many of them recognizable from television, filed into the theater. This, he reflected, would have made a wonderful target for one of his three small bombs, killing the two presidents and most of the media representatives present.
But that was not a worry for Hamish. He didn’t need the other two bombs now, and the Secret Service had the other one. The device in the Vuitton steamer trunk would do the work of a thousand of the smaller bombs.
Secret Service agents, a dozen of them with sniffer dogs, wandered the room, making a final check. The dogs hadn’t helped find the missing bombs because one was concealed in a place no one would ever look, and the other was in a vehicle that had already been searched several times.
Half the reporters in the room were on their cell phones; the other half were scribbling in their notebooks. Hamish watched them, feeling relaxed and content. His plans were made, and they would be carried out. He took out his throwaway cell phone and sent messages to Wynken and Blynken. He had already made his travel arrangements. He would not need the Cessna Caravan; it was now his backup escape plan. He sent a text to the pilot, instructing him to be ready for takeoff at three P.M.
Then a hush fell over the room as the president of the United States, accompanied by the president of Mexico, entered the theater from stage right and took their seats at a table at the center of the stage.
51
Stone and Dino were sitting with Mike Freeman, watching the presidents’ statements, when Steve Rifkin came in, mopping his brow.
“Everything all right?” Mike asked.
“So far, so good. I had to get out of that theater. Standing around waiting for something terrible to happen was just too much.”
“Relax,” Mike said. “Those two bombs are not on the premises. I think we’ve satisfied ourselves of that. How’s it going down at the front gate?”
“Nobody was supposed to arrive before noon, but they’re lined up, waiting to have themselves and their vehicles searched. Pretty soon, they’re going to start blowing their horns. What’s the president saying?”
“This is good stuff,” Stone said. “The Mexicans have agreed to create a new border guard unit in their army that will patrol their side of the fence, and that will mean a doubling of the number of people looking for illegal crossings.”
“Very good,” Steve said.
Holly Barker came into the room. “How’s it going?” she asked.
Stone brought her up to date.
“May I use the study for a moment?” she asked.
“Help yourself.”
Holly went into the study, called the Agency’s London station, got Tom Riley on the line, and scrambled. “Anything new?” she asked.
“We got a guy into the McCallister house posing as a gas worker looking for a leak in the neighborhood, but they wouldn’t allow him above the ground floor.”
“Swell, so we still don’t know if Hamish and Mo are in the house?”
“Our man did see the cook put a breakfast tray in the dumbwaiter and send it up.”
“A tray for one or two?”
“He thinks for one.”
“So one of them isn’t in the house?”
“Or one of them doesn’t eat breakfast. Take your pick.”
“Tom, do a search of everything for the name Algernon.” She spelled it for him.
“In what context?”
“In any context at all. We’ve got an al Qaeda operative calling himself Algernon.”
“Okay.”
“Call me when you’ve got something.” She hung up and went back into the living room.
“The president has finished, and now Vargas is having his say,” Stone said. “You look a little stressed. How come?”
Holly turned and walked out onto the patio without replying. Stone got up and followed her.
“What’s going on, Holly?”
“I’m missing something, that’s what’s going on,” she said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Do you understand that we’re under siege here in this hotel? There are at least two bombers out there, determined to do their worst, and nothing we’ve been able to do about finding them has worked.”
“You sound like Steve Rifkin,” Stone said. “Leave it to the Secret Service, they’re the experts here, not you.”
“I’ve got a contact in London who I think is lying to me, but I can’t prove it.”
“I should think you’d get lied to a lot, in your business,” Stone said.
“I feel out of my depth,” Holly said. “I’m accustomed to playing offense, not defense.”
“I wish I could help,” Stone said. “Why don’t you talk with Felicity? Maybe she can help.”
“We had a long chat last evening,” Holly said, “and she’s working her side of the pond.”
“Have you done everything you can do?”
“I’ve done everything I can think of, which may not be the same thing.” Her phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked away a few yards.
“It’s Tom. Scramble.”
Holly scrambled. “Shoot.”
“We haven’t got much: There’s a hotel in South London by that name, could be a drop. There’s Algernon Moncrieff, a character in The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde, and there’s a short story and then a novel called Flowers for Algernon, made
into a movie called Charly that starred Cliff Robertson. He got an Academy Award for his performance. That’s it. Nobody here can think of anything in either work that would relate to al Qaeda or spying or anything else.”
“Okay, Tom.”
“We’ll keep at it.”
“Sure, call me.” Holly hung up and went back to where Stone had sat down.
“Anything new?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
52
Hamish opened the closet door and took the key to the steamer trunk from his pocket, opened it, and swung open the door. The finely machined panel glowed in the light from the overhead bulb.
Hamish inserted his T-key into the slot at the top of the panel and turned it ninety degrees to the right. With a click, the clock was powered, displaying a row of zeros. Hamish checked his wristwatch, added the number of hours until eight-thirty P.M., then carefully tapped the hours and minutes into the keypad. He took a deep breath and let it out, then he pressed the enter button, and the clock began its downward march to zero.
The concert would begin at seven P.M., perhaps a few minutes later. It was scheduled to run until eight-thirty, so the device would detonate at about the time of the last number in the concert, or, perhaps, during an encore. Even if the detonation came late there would still be fifteen hundred people in the Arrington Bowl, among them the presidents of the United States and Mexico. All the others-movie moguls, movie stars, entertainers of various skills, the cream of Los Angeles society, business leaders-would simply be cannon fodder for the greatest lethal attack on the United States ever recorded. Upward of a million people would die in an instant-many more of their injuries or radiation sickness in the months and years to come.
The loss of the great Osama bin Laden would be avenged. Any evidence of the perpetrators would be vaporized in the initial blast, so no one would ever know who had caused it, until the announcement was made worldwide on the Internet. Neither he nor Mo nor Jasmine nor any of the people who had helped them would ever be known to the authorities. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod would be dead.
Hamish checked his watch again: he would leave The Arrington at three P.M.; his flight from LAX would depart at five P.M. and arrive in London after a nonstop flight at midmorning the following day. He would drop off his luggage at his house, then have lunch at his club.
He closed the trunk and locked it, then put the two keys into his pocket. He would have time for a nice lunch at the patio restaurant; he had already booked the table, late, for two P.M.
He packed his two Vuitton cases with his clothes and set them near the front door for collection by Hans, then he showered, shaved, and began to dress for lunch.
–
H olly Barker returned to the presidential cottage with the president and the first lady after the press conference. The president seemed in a particularly good mood, and so did the first lady.
“Lunch in half an hour,” Kate Lee said, and at that moment, Holly’s phone rang.
“Holly Barker.”
“It’s Tom Riley: scramble.”
She scrambled. “Yes, Tom?”
“I don’t know why we took this long,” Riley said sheepishly. “We should have had it last night.”
“What, Tom?”
“Algernon.”
“Yes?”
“When we ran the search on Mo, we got his birth certificate; we got Hamish’s, too, in his birth name of Ari Shazaz. What we didn’t pick up on was the deed poll.”
“Tom, what the hell is a deed poll?”
“It’s the legal procedure used when the name of a British subject is changed. Ari Shazaz’s name was changed at the age of nine, after his parents’ divorce. His full name became Hamish Algernon McCallister.”
Holly’s knees went weak, and she sank into a chair. “Tom,” she said.
“Yes, Holly?”
“Phone in a fire alarm on the house on the Chelsea Embankment. Put some smoke on the roof, if you can, for verisimilitude. When the fire brigade arrives, send your people in with them and detain both Hamish and Mo. Get them to a quiet place quickly and start interrogating them. No nice chat-use whatever you have to use to find out what they did in Palo Alto. No police department, no intelligence service is to be brought into this. When you have everything you can get from the two men, get them out of the country to Gitmo. Is that clearly understood?”
“It’s understood, Holly, but I’m going to have to hear it from the director, in person, before I can do any of that.”
“Stand by, Tom, don’t hang up.” Holly went into the next room and looked for the first lady; she was nowhere in sight. Clutching her phone, she ran up the stairs to the second floor where the first couple’s bedroom was. A Secret Service agent stood at the top of the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am?” the man said, blocking her way. “How may I help you?”
“I must see the first lady immediately, priority one.”
“And your name, ma’am?”
“Oh, God, you’re new, aren’t you?” Holly asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m Holly Barker, assistant director of intelligence. I’m Mrs. Lee’s number two.”
“May I see identification to that effect, please?”
Holly smote her forehead. “It’s in my handbag downstairs.”
“I’ll wait while you get it, ma’am.”
“I don’t have time for this. Go and tell the first lady I’m waiting. I’ll be right here. It’s a matter of life and death.”
“I think I’d better call my supervisor,” the man said, producing a handheld radio. “Just a moment.”
“I don’t have a moment,” Holly said.
But the man was already speaking into the radio; he wasn’t moving, and he was too big for Holly to move. “This is Special Agent Jack Shorstein,” he said into the radio. “Chief of detail, please, priority.” He took the radio away from his lips. “This will take just a moment.”
Holly began to take deep breaths, trying to bring her rate of respiration down. She raised her phone. “You still there, Tom?”
“Yes, Holly. I can hear you having difficulties.”
“Just hang on.”
The agent’s radio crackled, and he put it to his hear. “Yes? Special Agent Shorstein, sir. A woman who says her name is Holly Barker is demanding to see the first lady. She has no ID. Yes, sir.” He handed the radio to Holly. “Special Agent Rifkin wishes to speak with you.”
Holly snatched the radio from him. “Steve? It’s Holly. I’ve got to see the first lady right now. ”
“Holly, give the radio back to my agent.”
She handed him the radio and waited while he listened, then put the radio back on his belt. “You’re cleared to see the first lady, ma’am,” he said, stepping aside.
Holly ran down the hall to the master bedroom and knocked on the door. It was answered by a maid.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I’d like to see the first lady at once,” Holly said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but she’s in the bath.”
Holly shoved the woman aside and went for the bath. She opened the door without knocking, stepped into the bathroom, and saw, clearly, the president of the United States and the first lady in the shower together.
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Holly shouted over the noise of the running water, “but this can’t wait!”
53
Kate Lee sat in a terry-cloth hotel robe and listened to Holly’s story. “Hamish’s middle name is Algernon,” Holly said.
Kate looked stunned. “This doesn’t seem possible.”
“Ma’am, Hamish recruited-or at least, assigned-Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. All the e-mails the NSA and the Brits intercepted originated from him. We’ve got to interrogate him at once.” Holly held out the cell phone to her.
Kate took the phone. “Tom? It’s Kate Lee.”
Nothing.
“The phone’s dead,” Kate said.
Holly took it from he
r and redialed the number.
“Tom Riley.”
“Tom, we got cut off. Here’s the director.” She handed the phone back to Kate.
“Tom, it’s Kate Lee. You recognize my voice?”
“Yes, Director.”
“Carry out Holly’s instructions and report back to her at every stage of the operation. Get the two men to that air force base in the Midlands and on an airplane to Guantanamo. The brothers are to be isolated from each other and everyone else. Am I clear?”
“Absolutely clear, ma’am.”
“Good-bye. Let us hear from you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Riley hung up.
Kate handed back the phone to Holly. “I hope this is productive,” she said, “because, believe me, this is going to come back and bite me on the ass. Probably the president, too.”
“You can always blame me,” Holly said. “I’ve still got my army pension.”
“I hope you won’t need it,” Kate said. “Can my husband and I get dressed now?”
Holly turned red. “I’m so sorry, ma’am.”
“What do you want to bet this makes his memoirs?”
“Oh, God, I hope not.”
“You can hope.”
Holly ran for the door, then downstairs to her room and installed a fresh battery in her cell phone. Almost immediately, it rang. “Hello?”
“It’s Stone. Want to have some lunch?”
“Yes, please, I need to think about something else.”
“Something else than what?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Meet me at the patio restaurant in ten minutes,” Stone said. “I’ve got a table.”
“See you there.” Holly ran into the bathroom, checked her makeup, then hurried out of the presidential cottage. She hopped into her electric cart and barreled down the cart path toward the restaurant.
Stone was sitting at a table, drinking iced tea. Holly joined him.
“This,” she said, “is the first time I’ve ever been able to see three movie stars in one place, live.”
“I know,” Stone replied, “the place is infested with them.” He waved at someone behind Holly.