Not Exactly Allies
Page 34
CHAPTER 34 – DEVLON DIGS SOMETHING UP
Pamela Williams was still missing. There was an agency team trying to track her down. So far, they weren't quite in agreement on where she'd last been seen, much less on anything else.
Devlon Sarton-Zaffino thought it would be more valuable to find out what she'd been up to before she went missing, and was acting accordingly.
Besides, she had lied to him. It was not a good idea to lie to Devlon. He was the sort to feel betrayal clear down into his bone marrow.
Devlon didn't buy into the official line that Stolemaker was involved in a pilot program to reduce the potential damage from terrorist attacks by having intelligence chiefs telecommute from scattered, secret locations. He sensed that something was seriously amiss inside MI5 1/2, and possibly in the UK itself, and that the deceitful Ms. Williams was probably involved (was she not the one who told him that security camera sabotage was not to be worried about?). This only added to the urgency he felt. Devlon, to be sure, did not show any urgency. He had turned himself into an old-school gentleman despite his youth, and old-school gentlemen, in his estimation, did not show urgency if they could help it. They did, however, aim for results. And results he got.
He invited himself to Stolemaker's office while on his lunch break.
"How's the telecommuting experiment going, Mrs. Dourlein?" he asked Darlene.
"They'll tell me when they know," she said.
Devlon grinned broadly. He set down a folder. "Read it and weep," he said.
She motioned Devlon into a chair and opened the folder. Amongst other things, Devlon had laid out timelines regarding Ms. Pamela Williams.
"My favorite bit," Devlon said, "is where she obtains copies of the secret passage project's final report, and just two days later introduces herself to Dr. Orchard and begins to ingratiate herself. I don't suppose you'd let me be privy to whether her fingerprints were in that rabbit run off your closet?"
"Good heavens. I forgot all about the fingerprints once we found out where the passage came out. I guess I assumed they'd be Orchard's."
"With all due respect-"
"There's no need to finish that sentence, young man. Assumptions can get people killed. I know that. Don't rub it in."
"I hadn't any plan to rub it in. Shall I mosey down to Carterson's neck of the woods and see if he's in and can spare me a minute?"
"No, that's all right. I can call. Oh, on second thought, go on. I shouldn't want to ruin your fun. You've earned it. Go ahead."
"I haven't any idea what you're talking about, you know," Devlon said, with a wink. He bowed to her and left.
Darlene started to call Carterson, but changed her mind. Devlon seemed a more secure way of communicating than using phones right now, for one thing. For another, the boy truly had earned his bit of fun. She picked up the Williams folder again and began reading it in earnest.