CHAPTER 19 – THE DATE
Dennis dropped his jaw when Janice showed up in the hotel lobby. He'd never seen her in nice clothes, or with well-combed hair for that matter. She was a stunner when she worked at it, he decided. Rather boyish build, and not exactly a classic face, but somehow a stunner all the same, even with mismatched feet (one shoe, one cast – no, now that it wasn't half-obscured by trousers, it looked to be a splint and bandage). Her unbandaged ankle was surprisingly alluring. He set himself on his guard. Likely she seduced loyal government workers as part of her job. He bet himself that she'd be very good at it. He hastily tried to force himself to change what he was thinking about. "You look very nice," he blurted. It was not at all what he meant to say. Nor how he meant to say it. But, well, there it was. The deed was done.
She seemed surprised by the compliment. She stammered, and then flung out, "You don't look half bad yourself."
Dennis felt a need to explain himself. "I, uh, I'm sorry I didn't dress more formally. I was afraid you might not have nice clothes, uh, I mean… I… I didn't want to put you at a disadvan… I… Well, anyway. Shall we go?"
At the restaurant, Dennis tried to think how best to 'build rapport' as Dr. Orchard had put it, but found himself more or less at a loss, at least at first. But then they discovered a few favored authors in common, plus a shared habit of reading The Scotsman newspaper on the internet (they even despised the same columnist, for a wonder – and of course Holyrood was always good for a laugh or a sneer), plus a few other unexpected habits or hobbies in common. He was surprised. She even collected Hummel figurines, like his grandmother did. That wasn't exactly something that the two of them had in common, since he wouldn't be caught dead collecting sweet German statuettes, but it was an activity he associated with tried and true values and cataloged in his mind as a surprisingly feminine activity for a woman he'd pegged as a foaming at the mouth feminist. Not to mention a traitor.
He began to have serious doubts about this woman being a traitor.
Halfway through the main course, Janice said, "I think I owe you an apology. I thought, back at the office, earlier today, that Dr. Orchard had set you up to this."
Dennis blinked. "Set me up to what?" he asked, cautiously.
"To take me out to dinner, I mean. You did look at me funny, I thought, when you came out of his office. Anyway, I'm sorry. I apologize. This is very nice." She eyed him, rather appraisingly, perhaps hopefully.
She made it to dessert before she shifted gears. She spoke quietly, so other diners couldn't hear, but her attitude was of a woman who, having found sympathy she deemed sufficient, simply could not bear to keep her troubles to herself one moment longer. "Well, here's the thing. Dr. Orchard nearly got me killed yesterday," she blurted.
Dennis was all ears. This was something in common that he really hadn't expected. He wondered if she might be setting him up, trying to get him to spill about his own close call. Hah! He wasn't going to fall for that trick. He carefully composed his face and leaned closer to listen.
"I know this all sounds crazy, but listen," Janice said, rapidly. "He sent me out to this place in the country. I was supposed to go with Pammy, but she wasn't at her office when I got there, and they said to go ahead and go without her, and gave me instructions. Stupid instructions, really. Why sneak up to a house across open fields? But I'd done everything I was supposed to and I'd got nearly to the house and a bomb went off, and I took off and next thing I knew Triple-O Five himself was trying to kill me. You know how he's been linked to terrorist organizations and such, and is under investigation. I mean, you want to talk about a set-up? Him and some undercover operative I didn't recognize posing as a postman came after me. They didn't get me with the bomb, and I don't know what they meant for Plan B, but I didn't stick around to find out and they shot at me anyway, so I had to dodge, which is how I got a stick jammed into my foot, which is why I have this bandage, but it worked because I dodged so well that they gave up shooting at me. I was scared to bloody death to come to work today, but even more scared to not be where I could keep tabs on things. Or to let on that I knew anything had gone wrong, for that matter. I just pretended that I hurt my ankle first, and couldn't go like planned. I don't have any idea what to do next. I mean, where do I go, when it's my own boss that set me up and an agent I thought was surely trustworthy until a couple of weeks ago who tried to... who tried to…" She faltered grievously, before diving back in at doubled intensity. "Well, he double-crossed me, didn't he? Doesn't even know me from Adam, not really, and he'd just throw my life away because... because… I don't know why and maybe I killed him but nobody knows where he is, so I don't know if he's okay, and I shot him, I think, and he double-crossed me but everyone thinks he's nice except people in our department, only I didn't want to shoot… to shoot… ever…" She burst into tears. The anger in her face melted into despair.
Dennis blinked. What a performance! She'd had him, hook, line and sinker, right up until she came unglued at the end. If he hadn't been at the Loomis cottage during the bombing and immediate aftermath, he might have believed her even yet. But he knew what Richard Hugh had told him, and Mrs. Hugh, and the postman. If he really was a postman? Would a real postman really have taken off after a person like that?
He found himself floundering. He'd been sitting on the ground recovering from the bomb blast when all this happened. Truthfully, he only had other people's word for what happened out in the cow pasture. Except for gunshots. He'd heard gunshots. The sound of shots had made him try to go for cover, but his legs wouldn't work. Uhh. Bad thing to remember.
He steadied himself. No woman was going to fog his brain with a teary over-the-top tale. Whether or not Triple-O Five and his associates had lied to him, he, Dennis William Uppington, descendant of dukes and proud product of Oxford, was perfectly capable of getting to the bottom of this.
Although he didn't like to admit it, he was afraid that Dr. Orchard had arranged for Janice to play hard to get, and then agree to come out tonight. It was likely all preplanned, and he'd fallen into their net, kerplop, just like some dumb fish swimming along minding its own business but running afoul of a fisherman.
They could think him a dumb fish if they wanted, at least for now. But he had no intention of acting like one, no sir, not now that he'd noticed the net. He mumbled something about having to make a phone call and bailed out of the room. He tried calling Felicity. Her phone was busy. And busy. And busy. He tried redialing as fast as he could redial. He finally got through. "Mrs. Findlater?" he asked, nonchalantly (he thought). When she confirmed it, he said, in a torrent of barely audible words, "This is Dennis and I'm at dinner with Janice Pendergrast, that's Ja-nice Pen-der-grast, and she's just admitted to being the person who shot at O.O.O.Five only she says it was a set-up and that he was trying to kill her, with Orchard's help, and I don't dare leave her out of my sight very long because I don't trust her or her story so I have to go but I thought you should know if something happens to me." He rang off. He was very pleased with himself for getting so much information across in such a short span of time.
At her dining table, Felicity gently banged her head on the tabletop. "Rookies," she muttered. "I hate it (bang) when they're (bang) in the 'lone hero against steep odds' phase" (bang, bang, bang).
She sat up and called Chief Stolemaker.
-
Dennis returned to the table to find Janice gone, the bill waiting for him. There was a waiter standing discreetly by.
"Will there be anything else today, sir?" the waiter asked.
"The lady… the lady left?"
"Yes, sir."
"But I… I just stepped out to make a phone call."
"Ladies do tend to be unpredictable, sir," the waiter deadpanned.
Dennis realized that he was dangerously close to being snickered at, and by the help, no less. He pointedly ignored the waiter and picked up the jacket he'd left on his chair. He looked at the bill to make sure it was his, and all correct. "What in the world?" he
said.
"Anything the matter, sir?" The waiter seemed to be trying to control his face.
"There's a mistake here. There's a bottle of wine been added. We didn't have wine in a bottle. See, we had by the glass. It's here already. See. There." He pointed to his wine glass, and hers, and to the corresponding charge on the ticket.
"Yes, sir. No mistake, sir. The lady added it to the tab on her way out."
"But, surely you didn't send her out the door with a whole bottle of wine?"
"Shhh, sir. We made an exception, this being a special occasion and all." He winked.
"But it's a bloody expensive bottle of wine!" Dennis yelped. "I couldn't– uh, wouldn't have… wouldn't have…"
The headwaiter appeared, to plead for decorum. "Here. Here, sir. Let's step away from the other diners and see if we can't resolve whatever issue we are facing, somewhat more quietly, shall we?"
Dennis was effectively shushed and spirited away from the dining room. The headwaiter was phenomenally good at assuming control; it was fascinating, that, from a purely scientific angle – but then the problem of a staggering dinner bill reasserted itself. "But I… I didn't authorize this wine. I'd never…."
The two waiters exchanged knowing and determined looks.
"Sir, we can hardly stay in business if people order wine and do not pay for it," the headwaiter said.
"I didn't… I wouldn't… I…"
"A member of your party did, sir. That makes you responsible. I'll make you this offer. If you return the wine bottle by tomorrow night in pristine condition, I'll issue a full refund, no questions asked."
Dennis stood blinking at them. It dawned on him that they thought that he and Ms. Pendergrast (she was definitely back to being Ms. Pendergrast – not Janice), that he and Ms. Pendergrast had planned this, and hoped to snooker the restaurant out of a bottle of wine. It was unthinkable: service providers considering him – him – a thief? Worse than that, a thief in cold blood, if you wanted to put it that way. Malice aforethought, in any case. Slowly, it dawned on him that similar scams had made the news of late, and that these people were not totally nuts to worry about such scams. They were totally nuts to think that he'd do such a thing, but it was one of those crimes that was in the air, so to speak.
Suddenly, he recalled that Ms. Pendergrast had commented on the scam just the other day, to another female in the office. She knew about this sort of thing. She knew she would get him into trouble. She knew. Therefore it followed that she'd know that he'd likely be tied up for a time, protesting his innocence and trying to sort things out.
He didn't like to imagine what horrors the traitors inside British intelligence had planned that would be furthered by his staying where he was. He thanked the headwaiter for giving him an out in an embarrassing situation, and paid the bill. He asked for his car to be brought round.
"Your car, sir?" the man in charge of having cars brought round asked.
"Yes, my car. Silver sports car. Custom interior."
"It's not that I don't remember the car, sir." The man moved slightly behind the headwaiter. "The lady said it was her car, sir."
Dennis fought the urge to run outside to look for his car. His voice shook. "She… she took… the car?"
The car valet nodded nervously. "She had the keys to it, sir."
"Here, maybe she didn't take my car. Let's go see," Dennis said, trying to sound reasonable but painfully aware that he was merely giving in to the disbelief, which didn't want to transform itself into belief without the evidence of his own eyes, and never mind that, search as he might, he couldn't seem to find his keys in his jacket pocket.
The valet was sure that it was his car that the young woman with the splint on her foot had driven off, but Dennis looked at every vehicle on the lot, trying in vain to see his beloved sports car; his beloved, customized sports car. He finally had to admit that it wasn't there. He wondered, briefly but petulantly, if Pendergrast's splint was truly needed, or merely part of a disguise.
His fury was spent, though, at least for the moment. He dragged himself back into the restaurant, where the manager steered him into the office, so that his dejected demeanor wouldn't bring down the atmosphere, or otherwise bother the other patrons.
"She stole my car," Dennis said to the very patient manager (who didn't mention that Dennis had made the same, dazed comment several times over). "No one's ever stolen my car. And I take a lady…" He paused. Ladies who stole cars were not ladies. "I take a woman…" he corrected. He wasn't sure that women who stole customized sports cars that had taken a lifetime to acquire and modify-just-so were even deserving of the term woman, but decided to let that pass. He felt his heat coming back. "I… I take a woman out to eat at a nice place and she pays me back like this? You know what? I'm not going to let her get away with this. I'm sure she thinks that I'm not the sort of person would call in police, but this really is quite beyond what I can… can… tolerate. And don't worry. I'm not blaming your restaurant. She's a slick one, I'll give her that. I can hardly blame a valet when I got taken in, too." Dennis didn't add that he was increasingly worried that he was in some sort of trap, and that it would be very nice to have his tormentors, or at least one of them, in police custody, or at least on record as having tormented him.
Ordinarily he'd have gone to his supervisor for advice first, this involving another person inside the department. But, of course, his supervisor being a traitor rather sat the world on its ear, which called for innovations like calling in the police.
-
The manager hadn't risen to be manager of an excellent restaurant by ceding control of awkward situations to distraught customers. He got the needed particulars from Dennis, placed the call to the police, and reported the vehicle stolen in his own, carefully worded way.
He got a taxi for Dennis, and escorted him out to it, giving the cabbie a subtle signal that this customer was one that might bear watching. He'd long since learned that if he warned cabbies, they returned the favor. It paid to have allies, in the war against criminals posing as customers.
The manager wasn't convinced that Dennis was a dishonest man or meant any harm. That he'd turned in a stolen vehicle report for the very vehicle driven off by his date tended to support the theory that here was just a hapless young man who'd been picked as a sucker by a scheming young woman. Certainly she'd been earnestly trying to convince him of something, in a voice kept under what anyone else could hear. The dining room staff had noticed that and remarked on it. But still, the young man had tried at the front end to not pay for wine ordered in his name. Therefore, he bore watching.
-
Fortune did not seem to be smiling on Janice Pendergrast. She was nearly home when she was pulled over by police. They didn't seem the least interested in her story that she had borrowed the car with every intention of handing it back in the morning, at work – that she'd merely taken it to teach the oaf a lesson about manners.
She thought it was impertinent of them to ask where she and the car's owner worked. She, for one, was not going to drag her branch of British intelligence services into this.
She tried to excuse the police officers on the grounds that they clearly had headaches. They kept rubbing their temples: a sure sign of headache. Things would go better at the station, surely.
But persons of higher authority at the police station also seemed to be plagued with headaches. They were not interested in her story, either.
Janice did not want to post bail. It was a matter of principle. As far as she could see, since Dennis had reported the car stolen, he was responsible for her arrest, and therefore he was on the hook for bail and other expenses. She laboriously explained this position to the woman in charge of booking her. The woman just shook her head.
-
"Oh, Dennis, I'm so glad you're finally here. I've tried to explain things, but no one seems to understand me," Janice gushed when he came through the door.
She should not have gushed. He was in no mood for it
, and thought it the final proof that she was having him on. "Shooting at public servants yesterday wasn't enough for you? You had to add car snatching to your accomplishments for the week?" he sneered.
That got everyone's attention.
Dennis manfully tried to explain the situation without spilling what he considered state secrets.
Trying that hard not to implicate himself whilst throwing an associate to the wolves placed Mr. Uppington under suspicion, even before he was identified as the chap who'd delivered the package bomb to Deerfield Cottage right after the resident was discovered murdered.
The police found the Deerfield Cottage incident fascinating, and ripe for conjecture. Mr. Uppington had reportedly not made any move to help apprehend the person fleeing the scene, but had left that duty to two persons who had subsequently been shot at. Perhaps he had known there would be shooting? Or had he hoped to be able to use the confusion to provide himself access to the murder scene? Was the bomb Plan B for murder? Or was it for destroying evidence? Perhaps it was to kill investigators or ambulance crews who responded to the emergency calls. There had been a lot of that sort of trouble of late.
How Mr. Uppington could have been let go was baffling. The officers settled on a working theory that the persons in charge of the Loomis investigation were incompetent.
After one thing had been taken with another, Dennis found himself in custody. Instead of calling a legal professional, he called Felicity and tried to explain his situation. He was making such a mash of it that an officer took the phone and explained the charges.
Felicity promised that someone would be in touch within the hour. In the meantime, under no circumstances should they release Mr. Uppington or Ms. Pendergrast if they could help it, she said. The officer got the idea, after a fashion. He scribbled code on a note pad: SLDRUO. It was a new code, made up for the occasion: Suspects Loony Don't Release Until Ordered. He scratched his head. It always paid to have a more politically correct translation on hand, if anyone asked. This one was tough. SL he could turn into Suspected Losers, which was likely correct, but didn't come off polite enough, or professional sounding, for that matter… Ahhh. He had it. Security Lockdown, Don't Release, Under Orders. That was sweet, he thought. He liked to make up codes, but some acronyms never did shuffle out into public-friendly alternatives. "Don't" was problematic, though. "Denied release" might sound more official, and didn't involve any contractions.
"Here, now, what's the verdict?" Dennis asked, jovially, trying to draw the police officer's attention back to the present in a pleasant way.
The officer returned the joviality in a general way, on the grounds that loonies needed humoring, and had the young man escorted to a cell.
-
Felicity had no idea how to deal with the situation, so she called Darlene Dourlein. Darlene had dealt with this sort of thing before, but never when treason was in the air inside the agency itself, ruling out her usual contacts and procedures. She hated to involve the chief in something of this nature while he was invalided, especially this late at night. She called him anyway.
At 3:37 a.m., Dennis and Janice were quietly loaded into a common-enough van and spirited away into the night.
Behind them, police carried the paperwork on them into a back room and locked it securely away, then buried the computer records under an extra layer of passwords. Under the circumstances, they were agreeable to not leaving anything out in the open, for the time being at least. After all, the intelligence services sometimes sat on things at the pleasure of local investigators, and thank goodness. Who knew better than cops that things were not always what they seemed?
Not Exactly Allies Page 19