“Time to go, ladies!” Maggie said cheerfully. All it took was five seconds to scoop up the food and utensils and jam them into the picnic basket. Myra grabbed the blanket and stuffed it under her arm. Three minutes later, they were in the car.
“Annie, if you drive straight, you can loop around and be on the other side of this lot, and we can see when the picnickers leave, which I’m assuming will be within minutes. Can this baby burn rubber?”
“Watch, you silly girl!” Annie said, flooring the gas pedal. “And we have liftoff!” Annie squealed as she followed Maggie’s directions.
“Mother of God, slow down, Annie. You just gave me whiplash! There it is, see the spot? Pull over and cut this engine. It sounds like it belongs to the Boeing Company.”
“Everyone is a critic,” Annie grumbled.
“Oh, dear Lord! There they go! Maggie, you were absolutely right! Are we in danger?” Myra dithered. “What should we do now?”
“Let’s go to a hotel. At least we’ll know it’s not bugged. I’m going to call a…friend and see about getting my house swept for bugs. The paper and the phones, too. The only problem with that is, with all the high tech that is out there these days, the bugs will be back within hours. And it lets them know, whomever they are, that we are onto them,” Maggie said.
“But it’s been almost a year and a half since everyone split up. Why wait all that time to do…or implement whatever it is they plan on doing?” Myra said stubbornly.
“I don’t know, Myra, but I do know this. I am going to e-mail Ted and Espinosa and tell them to hand in their resignations. We need them, and we need them now.”
“Will they have to forfeit the monies Global paid them?” Myra asked.
“Probably. At this point I don’t think either one of them will care. That’s how much they both hate the job,” Maggie said. “I don’t know why I say this, but I think Ted is key to all of this. I also think he’ll be on the next plane out of Rome if I tell him it’s okay and that the paper needs them both.”
“If he or Joseph needs any added incentives, tell them both I will make up the difference in money. I mean that, Maggie, and won’t take no for an answer. You’re right, we need Ted and Joseph. Can you text him now?” Annie asked.
“I’m doing it as we speak,” Maggie shot back.
“Which hotel do you want me to head for, Maggie? For obvious reasons, I don’t know much about Washington hotels. Now Vegas, that’s a different story.”
“Do you want a five-star hotel?” Maggie asked, her fingers busily texting Ted.
“Absolutely.” Annie sniffed, as if she had been insulted by the question.
“Take your pick. There is the Mandarin Oriental, the Hay-Adams, the Ritz-Carlton, or the St. Regis. None of them made five stars this year. All were in the four point five range. We could go to the Park Hyatt. It came in at a full five stars. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from Embassy Row and is in the West End of Georgetown, Twenty-fourth and M, Northwest. We can hang out in the Blue Duck Tavern. Good place to see who comes in who looks like they don’t belong. And they have excellent security. Ted did an article on it last year, and Espinosa got some great pictures.”
“Then the Park Hyatt it is,” Annie said, leaning on the horn to get out from behind a PT Cruiser.
“Tell me, dear, how can you talk and text at the same time?” Myra asked. “What is Ted saying?”
“He’s blessing you both up one side and down the other, and packing and texting at the same time. He’s so good at multitasking. But to answer your question, Myra, it takes practice. He’s telling me Espinosa is telling him the only available seats out of Rome on the next flight are first-class. He wants to know if he should take them, as they are pretty pricey.”
“Tell him yes,” Annie said as she was forced to slow down to make a right-hand turn. “Tell him to take a car service from the airport when he gets in. The Post can afford it.”
“Annie, Ted doesn’t work for the paper anymore. He and Espinosa resigned. Did you forget that little fact?”
“There is that, but I never accepted his or Joseph’s resignation. The two of them are still on the Post’s payroll. Their checks are automatically deposited. I thought you knew that, Maggie.”
Maggie stopped her furious texting long enough to lean forward. “Annie, that is too kind of you. No, I didn’t know, and I’m sure Ted and Espinosa don’t know, either.”
“I opened separate accounts for them. I guess I forgot to mention it. I appreciate loyalty above all else, and Ted and Joseph have come through for us time and time again. Loyalty should always be rewarded. Look alive, ladies, we’re here. Oh, my, all those snappy valet persons are arguing about who gets to park this fine vehicle.”
A young man snapped to attention when Annie stepped out of the car. “Do not even breathe when you drive this car to its parking spot. I’ll know if you do. Are we clear on that, young man?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said as he took a great gulp of air before sliding into the driver’s seat. Annie handed over a fifty-dollar bill through the window.
“I’m going to register us. You two head for the Blue Duck Tavern and keep your eyes peeled. Order me a Slamming Sally. Do I have to be cost-conscious on the room rates?” Maggie asked.
“Not if you’re booking a room for me. Of course not, Maggie. Just put it on the Post account. We have one here, don’t we?”
“Actually, we don’t, Annie.”
“Well, then, open one.”
“What do you think a Slamming Sally is, Annie?” Myra asked as they entered the dim Blue Duck Tavern, which even smelled like a tavern.
“Probably something that would knock us on our asses after the first drink. We need to dry out after last night, so we’ll drink ginger ale. We’ll ask for fancy glasses, and ginger ale looks enough like champagne to pass for it. We got it covered, Myra.”
“I wasn’t exactly planning on spending the night here, Annie. I have to call Charles and tell him where I am. Don’t worry, I won’t share any of the details. I wonder if he has any inkling of what Maggie is talking about,” Myra whispered.
“Men stick together, you know that, Myra, just the way women stick together. I don’t think you should say anything to him until we have something a little more concrete. I’m finding all of this…very perplexing. I didn’t pick up a thing from Fish during our time together. But now when I think back…it explains an awful lot of things. Pillow talk was always uninformative, but I do know this—he thinks the sun rises and sets on Hank Jellicoe.”
“Funny you should say that, Annie. Charles thinks the same way. Is this one of those ‘birds of a feather stick together’ kind of things? Or keep your friends close, your enemies closer?”
“Well, Ted and Joseph Espinosa subscribe to the latter theory. And they were in the trenches, so to speak. I just hate it when I don’t know what’s going on, Myra.”
“I know, dear. I don’t like it myself.”
Maggie walked into the Blue Duck just as the waitress was setting down their drinks. She slid room keycards across the table. “We’re all on the same floor in adjoining rooms.”
The minute the waitress walked back to her station, Maggie said, “I made another reservation on my BlackBerry. A friend will be picking up the key any minute now. He’ll slip it in an envelope and tell the concierge to hold it for me. No one will be the wiser. Did you see anything? Were all these people here when you got here? What are you drinking?” Maggie asked in a rush as she gulped at her Slamming Sally.
“Champagne,” Myra said.
“Fibber. That’s ginger ale.”
Maggie nonchalantly looked around the bar as she sipped at her colorful drink. It was still early in the afternoon, too early for the cocktail crowd; businessmen were still in their meetings while their wives, if they’d been considerate enough to bring them along, were either shopping or sightseeing, while the guests with children were sitting by the pool. “So, no one has come in since you a
rrived, right?”
“Six customers. The man at the bar looks like he’s had one too many. If I were the bartender, I would have cut him off two drinks ago. The couple against the wall had a full-course luncheon and are about finished. The two girls opposite the bar could be hookers. I say could be, I’m no authority. The businesswoman in the blue suit has been on her laptop and hasn’t looked up once. I think we’re okay so far,” Annie said.
“What do we hope to do in here?” Myra asked.
“Not much but drink. I want to see if anyone followed us. I know the two of you think I’m being paranoid, and I want to prove to you that I am not. Paranoid, that is. Unless someone planted a GPS tracker on your car while you were at the Post or when it was parked in the lot at the park, we should be in the clear. Now, if someone shows up who we think is questionable, we can be assured there is a GPS on the car,” Maggie said, as she kept her eyes fixed on the door leading into the Blue Duck.
“What is our plan if someone does show up?” Annie asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Do we…ah…take him out? What?”
Maggie sucked the last of her Slamming Sally and held it up so the waitress could see she wanted a refill. “We play it by ear. We should ask for some munchies, peanuts, or some trail mix. I think better when I’m eating.” Her drink arrived, and, without missing a beat, she continued to talk and suck through her straw at the same time.
Myra’s stubbornness rose to the fore again when she said, “I’m sorry, girls, but I am just not getting any of this. It’s been so long since our pardons, and so much time has passed, that I’m having trouble believing any kind of…tomfoolery is afoot.”
Annie’s eyebrows shot upward as her eyes widened. “Did you really say tomfoolery is afoot? My God, Myra, do you realize how that dates you? That sounds like everyone is going to go dancing in the park in their undies. You need to get with the program here and try to look alive and stop fingering those damn pearls. And who might that person be who just entered our domain here?”
Maggie raised her eyes from her drink to look at the man who walked over to the bar and ordered a beer. “Harmless. Not what we are looking for,” she said around the straw that was still clutched between her teeth.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” Myra whispered.
“You’ll know him or her when you see them. If you don’t spot them, then you do not belong in this business,” Maggie said, her gaze going to the door, where a tall man was standing. He removed his aviator glasses, rolled his neck like he was a tired businessman in want of something cool to drink.
“Bingo!” Annie chortled. “Mr. Cool himself. He’s going to belly up to the bar and order a frosty one. Right, Maggie?”
“I knew that,” Myra said, just as Maggie nodded in agreement.
Seven minutes later, a pert redhead in a dove gray pantsuit ambled in, stopped, looked around, then headed for the bar, where she sat down, two stools away from the guy with the aviator glasses.
“Part of the team,” Myra said, before anyone could say anything. Maggie nodded again as she slurped the last of her drink. She held her glass aloft for the waitress to see that she needed another refill.
“Start jabbering, ladies. Babies are always a good topic of conversation. I have pictures of Little Jack I don’t think you’ve seen. I think Lizzie has her camera on twenty-four seven, so she doesn’t miss a thing. Little Jack is a cutie for sure.” Maggie’s voice dropped several octaves. “All we need is one more, and my suspicions become fact. The next one will be so ordinary most people wouldn’t give him or her a second thought.” Maggie’s drink arrived as Myra and Annie managed to coo and giggle over the pictures of Little Jack, which wasn’t all that hard to do even though they, too, were watching the doorway out of the corners of their eyes.
Seventeen minutes later, Maggie’s fourth Slamming Sally arrived just as Myra and Annie finished speculating about Little Jack’s bright blue eyes. The room darkened momentarily as a pudgy woman with three rolls of belly fat, wearing a tank top and carrying two shopping bags, huffed and puffed her way to a table near the far end of the bar. The three women smiled as one.
“Tissue paper in the shopping bags. She’s just a watcher. She won’t interact at all, unlike those two at the bar.”
“How do you know this?” Myra asked in a jittery-sounding voice. “What in the world is in those drinks you’re guzzling?”
“I’m a reporter. I have instincts. I’ve seen it all, Myra. It’s what I used to do and what I miss most in my life. I’ve seen this same stakeout scenario, in one form or another, at least a hundred times. We’re three for three. They don’t know if we’re going to split up or not. Whatever, they have us covered. Outside in the lobby, there are three more just like them. You can count on it. Here’s something else you can count on. None of them belong to any of the famous alphabet-soup groups here in the District and Virginia. All of them are on Global’s payroll. But to answer your question as to the contents of my drink, it’s a mixture of passion fruit, pear nectar, acai berry, mango, and orange juice. Guaranteed to give you strength, energy, and stamina. Not a drop of liquor.”
“How long are we going to sit here, Maggie?” Annie asked.
“We aren’t. We’re leaving as soon as I get the check. “This is the plan. I’m sure by now one of Global Securities’ agents hacked into the hotel’s computer, and they know exactly what rooms we’re in. So, why disappoint them? We’ll take the elevator, they’ll watch from the lobby to see what floor we get off on. You with me so far?” Both Myra and Annie nodded. “Okay, then we take the stairs to the other room I got for us, which is three floors down. Talk about silly stuff as we leave and while we wait for the elevator.”
Maggie signed the check, added a generous tip. Together, the three women left the Blue Duck Tavern without so much as a glance at any of the other patrons. Maggie stopped just long enough to pick up an envelope from the concierge before rejoining the women at the elevator.
“This whole thing is starting to make me nervous,” Myra said.
“Maybe you should go back to Charlie and the farm, Myra. Obviously, you aren’t cut out for this kind of work. I swear, I do think you’ve taken the shine right off your pearls with all that fingering you’ve been doing.”
“You need to stop worrying about my pearls, Ms. de Silva. Oh, and you aren’t nervous? All I said was, this is making me nervous. If you had a brain, you would be nervous, too, Annie. None of this is computing, and you damn well know it, and no, I do not want to go back to the farm and Charlie, and you better not ever call him that to his face. The only person he lets call him Charlie is Hank Jellicoe. Oh, God! No matter what we do or say, that man is involved in some way.”
The elevator swished open. The three women stepped in, along with two lanky teenage girls, who got off on the seventh floor. The elevator continued upward and stopped on the seventeenth floor, where they got off. They walked down to the nearest EXIT sign, and walked down three flights to the fourteenth floor. Minutes later they were in a two-bedroom corner suite complete with sitting room, with a view that Annie proclaimed to be crappy. In response to which Myra told her to suck it up and be quiet.
“This is the governor’s suite, but I don’t know of which state. What all that means, I have no idea. The fridge is stocked with alcohol and soft drinks and snacks. State-of-the-art TV, Internet, and wireless. All the comforts of home for the governor and his posse or, if it is South Carolina or New York, his mistress or high-priced escort. Or perhaps his wife and kiddies,” Maggie said with a bite in her tone.
“What do we do now?” Myra asked.
“You guys watch TV while I continue to text Ted. You can order room service if you want. You didn’t eat any of the picnic food. And, Annie, you might want to call that dealership to pick up your car. Or, better, have your banker do it. No sense giving our location away by calling from here.”
Annie was so outraged that someone had dared to put a GPS tracker on her car she was spe
echless.
“Get over it, Annie. We have more pressing problems right now,” Myra said.
“What was your first clue, Myra?” Annie snapped.
Chapter 5
Harry Wong stared down at the pot of steeping tea. He poured it into a fragile cup with no handles just as he heard a knock on the door at the back of the dojo. He frowned at the sound as he tried to decide whether he should go to the door or not. He couldn’t remember if the door was locked. Yoko had left a half hour earlier to do some grocery shopping. Did she lock the door? He simply didn’t know, so he set his cup of tea down on the small counter and walked toward the back door. His jaw dropped when he opened the door to see Maggie, Annie, and Myra smiling at him.
All three women rushed him, hugging him, to his dismay. Annie planted a kiss on his cheek, and gurgled, “Oh, Harry, it is soooo good to see you. I’ve never been here before, and neither has Myra. I hope we aren’t interrupting anything.”
Harry grinned. It was nice to see some of his favorite people again after such a long time. His brow furrowed when he saw Maggie put her finger to her lips and motion for Harry to join them outside. He complied because he didn’t know what else to do.
The women drew him down the narrow alley, all babbling at the same time. He did his best to make sense out of what they were saying but knew he was missing half of it. What he didn’t miss was the worry and fear in the women’s eyes. What the hell is going on, he wondered. “Whoa, slow down, ladies. One at a time. Should we wait for Yoko to get back from the market so we can both hear what you have to say instead of making you repeat whatever it is you are about to tell me?”
“Seems to me I remember a small picnic table around back. Can we go there?” Maggie asked. “How much longer do you think Yoko will be?”
“I’m surprised that she isn’t back by now. She just walked over to the Asian market with her string bag. She buys just for the day. You know, fresh fruits and vegetables. Unless she went to the fish market, which is only two doors away. Even so, she should be back momentarily.” Harry pointed to the left of the driveway and said, “It’s two blocks away.”
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