A final burst of acceleration. The vehicles crested a ridge. The road dropped down the other side, and Blenheim came into view. Connor had provided photographs, but nothing could prepare Jonathan for the scale of it, the sheer weirdness of seeing a replica of the Duke of Marlborough’s famed estate six thousand kilometers from England. They rumbled over a wood plank bridge and entered the gravel forecourt. A slim, small man stood by the front door, waving exuberantly. He wore a white suit and white necktie and a red carnation in his lapel, and the wattage from his smile could light a small village.
Don’t be fooled by his behavior, Connor had warned. One minute he’ll hug you and swear to you that you’re blood brothers. The next he’ll have his man, Singh, put a kukri to your throat and slice it clean through with a single stroke. And he’ll be smiling all the time. Manners are his armor. They shield him from his enemies and protect him from his past.
The Range Rover came to a halt. Singh opened the door and Jonathan stepped out. Balfour remained where he was, not making a move. The waving stopped and he stared hard at Jonathan, the smile still plastered to his face. He’s seen a picture of Revy, thought Jonathan. He knows I’m a plant. Any second he’s going to tell Singh and that will be that. But instead of panicking, Jonathan relaxed. This was what Emma had done for eight years. Never once had he caught her acting. He could do it, too.
Selecting a smile to match Balfour’s, he approached his host. “’Allo, Mr. Armitraj. A pleasure!” he said in his best Suisse Romande accent.
Still Balfour didn’t move. He gazed at Jonathan gravely, then signaled to Singh and spoke to him sharply. The Sikh shot Jonathan a glance, and Jonathan struggled to guard his smile. He remembered Connor saying that the good news was that he wouldn’t spend time in a Pakistani prison and the bad news that Balfour would execute him on the spot. He caught a shadow from above and observed a sniper on the rooftop, a rifle pointed at his chest. Balfour’s voice rose, and the security men came closer, like jackals scenting a kill. The smile grew excruciating.
Balfour shouted a final exclamation, and Singh turned and walked directly to Jonathan, halting a body’s width away. “Please do not move,” he said.
Jonathan readied himself, loosening his shoulders, feeling an electric jolt in his fingertips.
And then Singh reached into his side pocket, withdrew a carnation similar to Balfour’s, and placed it in Jonathan’s lapel. “My apologies. M’ lord requested I give you this on your arrival.”
“A carnation,” added Balfour, striding toward Jonathan while glaring at Singh. “Symbol of Blenheim.” He grabbed Jonathan’s hand. “Welcome to my home, Dr. Revy, and call me Ash. None of this Mr. Armitraj nonsense. That’s what the police put on their warrants. I thought we’d already gone over that.”
“It is difficult for a Swiss to avoid formalities,” said Jonathan, amazed that he’d found any words at all.
“One more reason why I love your country.” Balfour took his arm and guided him toward the front door. “This way. I want to show you the operating theater. Everything is exactly as you specified. I hope you don’t mind if we get started right away.”
“Of course,” said Jonathan. “But I am here for two weeks.”
“My schedule has been advanced.”
“No problem at all. We can have everything ready in a few days.”
“Not in a few days, Dr. Revy. I’d like to undergo the procedure tomorrow evening.”
“Not possible,” said Jonathan, brooking no retort. “I operate in the morning. I’m freshest then. As for you, it’s essential that your stomach is empty. You’re not to eat a thing for twelve hours before receiving general anesthetic.” The actor in Jonathan wanted to bang a heel on the ground for good measure, but the ground was gravel, and he didn’t want to be melodramatic. “Besides,” he said, less forcefully, “that doesn’t even give us time to complete your blood work, let alone complete our consultations.”
“The blood panel is already back from the lab,” said Balfour. “The results are in your room.”
“Oh?” Jonathan hadn’t read anything about Balfour’s blood work being completed ahead of time. One of the last notes exchanged between the men suggested that Revy would oversee a blood panel upon his arrival. “Excellent, yes, yes, yes,” he said, summoning the verbal repetition that was Revy’s trademark. “Hmmm, it’s clear we don’t have any time to lose.”
Balfour guided him through the portico and into the foyer. As the heavy wooden door closed behind him, he saw the first of the armed men standing inside the cavernous minstrel’s gallery, and Jonathan knew he had just stepped into a prison.
52
Before the surgical suite came the tour of the estate.
Balfour had dropped Jonathan’s arm and strode a pace ahead through the long hallways, dropping tidbits of information about the rooms and decorations like a distracted docent. There was the library, where every book had been imported from the Duke of Bedford’s residence at Woburn Abbey. There was the living room, with a portrait by Sargent and a landscape by Constable. There was the study, and in it Winston Churchill’s desk from the office in Whitehall where he had written his “Nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat” speech at the beginning of the Second World War.
He’s an inveterate liar, Connor had told Jonathan. You’ll catch him out a dozen times, but don’t say a word. It’s his fantasy world, and he doesn’t like it disturbed.
As they continued through the house, Balfour pointed out those areas that Jonathan was free to visit and those that were off-limits. The media room was open territory, and Balfour stopped long enough to demonstrate his prowess at Call of Duty on a ninety-six-inch wall-mounted plasma screen and to boast about the ear-splitting surround-sound system.
The disco likewise was his to roam freely. It was barely one in the afternoon, but house music was blaring and three blondes dressed in beaded evening gowns and sipping flutes of champagne stood in the center of a black marble dance floor, moving their hips and trying hard not to appear bored. Balfour introduced them as Kelly, Robin, and Ochsana and told them that Jonathan was his most important guest and was to be shown every conceivable courtesy. The women offered soft handshakes and glances that left little to the imagination. For his part, Jonathan said he was delighted and estimated that the combined work done on the three of them exceeded $100,000 worth.
But when Balfour came to a staircase leading to the third floor, he stopped cold and addressed Jonathan in a singularly inhospitable voice.
“My office is upstairs. It’s where I conduct all my business and handle my personal affairs. You are to consider the entire third floor off-limits.”
Never kowtow to him, said Connor. You’re everything he aspires to be. Wealthy, educated, European. He’ll be looking to trump you any way he can, but don’t let him. It’s weakness he hates.
“But perhaps I may wish to view some more of your exquisite art collection,” said Jonathan. “Another Constable, perhaps?”
“All the art is downstairs.”
“And if we need to speak?” continued Jonathan, knowing he’d reached a boundary and was testing its strength.
“I can find you whenever necessary,” said Balfour. The smile returned, but this time to cloak a warning. “If I see you anywhere upstairs, I will have Mr. Singh kill you. Do I make myself clear?”
The outburst shocked Jonathan, and he could do nothing to conceal it. His eyes narrowed as he searched for a response, and for that instant he and Revy were one. His first reaction was to grab Balfour by his spiffy white lapels and threaten to kick his teeth in if he ever spoke to him that way again. Cover, urged Emma from a distant corner of his mind. Dr. Revy doesn’t get into fistfights. Jonathan followed his wife’s advice, but reluctantly. The novice spy was already chafing at the collar. So in the end he chose humor. A wealthy, educated European didn’t lower himself to a South Asian bastard’s level.
“But then who will there be to make your face even handsomer than it
already is?” he asked.
Balfour considered this. Deciding to accept the diplomatic way out, he threw his head back and laughed much too loudly.
The two left the main wing through a back door and Balfour led the way along a garden path through a topiary of bears and deer and foxes. At the end of the topiary, the path forked. To the left was a low-slung concrete building with a shingle roof and no windows. A map of the premises had labeled the building a maintenance shed, but to Jonathan’s eye it looked more like a bomb shelter. Two guards with AK-47s held at their chests stood by the door. Another Range Rover was parked nearby, doors open, and four more security men stood at the ready. There was a hubbub as two men in white jackets rolled in a piece of mechanical equipment.
“What’s in there?” asked Jonathan.
“My future,” said Balfour.
“Looks dangerous,” said Jonathan, still smarting from their earlier exchange.
Balfour glanced over his shoulder. “Mind your own business.”
It was the surgical suite Jonathan had always dreamed of. Every time a ventilator clogged and a pulse oximeter failed, whenever there were not enough clamps or even a rudimentary crash cart in the OR, he would swear to himself, close his eyes, and imagine operating in a place like this. There was a Stryker operating table and a Drager anesthesia machine as big as a dryer. There was a brand-new crash cart and a defibrillator. There was a suction machine and monitors to measure cardiac function, pulse, blood pressure, and CO2 levels. And then there were the instruments. Arrayed on a tray was a rack holding scissors, needle holders, clamps, forceps, and hemostats, all polished to an exquisite gleam. At least one hundred in all, if not more.
“Adequate,” said Jonathan, as arrogantly as any spoiled surgeon to the rich and infamous should. “I think I can make do. Yes, yes, yes.”
Balfour’s brow knitted in concern. “Did I miss anything? I ordered everything you suggested.”
Jonathan recalled the shopping list taken from Revy’s computer. “Ventilator with a HEPA filter?”
Balfour rushed to a corner of the room. “A Guardian 400.”
“Very well,” said Jonathan. “And my assistants? You’ve found a trained anesthesiologist and a surgical nurse?”
Balfour explained that he had hired the chief of anesthesiology from the National Institute of Health and that the surgical nurse was the doctor’s daughter. Jonathan replied that he thought that was fine. “I am a little tired,” he said. “And I’ll need time to read the results of your blood work. Shall we say three p.m. for our initial consultation?”
“Three is fine,” said Balfour. “If you’d like, we will take a ride afterward. I told my grooms to have my favorite stallion ready.”
Jonathan saw the challenge in his eyes. He thought of Connor’s excuses and discarded them in a bunch. “I look forward to it,” he said. “It will build our appetite for dinner.”
Suddenly Balfour checked his watch and hurried from the room. “Excuse me,” he said. “There’s someone else I must meet.”
Jonathan kept himself from following too closely. He had not yet seen Emma and was nearly insane with curiosity that it might be her.
53
Frank Connor climbed the stairs to his third-floor retreat slowly-one step, rest, one step, rest-so as not to give his heart another reason to expire at an inopportune moment. Reaching his bedroom, he did not lie down and rest for his customary twenty minutes before entering his study. When the people spying on you were already inside, any further deception was useless.
Connor poured himself three fingers of bourbon and quaffed it in a long, desperate swallow. He was not a field man, nor had he ever been. He was an operations man: a planner, a persuader, an organizer, and at times a procurer. So it was with difficulty that he drove the blood-soaked image of Malloy from his mind. The bourbon helped, carving a soothing course down his throat, leaching his anxiety. Collapsing in his captain’s chair, he forced himself to focus on the events of the past two weeks, moving from one day to the next in an effort to spot the mole’s tracks and put a name to a traitor.
First there was Dubai and Emma’s unmasking as his agent at the hands of Prince Rashid. Peter Erskine was correct in establishing that a handful of people had been privy to the manufacture of the booby-trapped rifle, but fewer still knew of Emma’s status as a double agent. That number was four. There was Connor, Erskine, Sir Anthony Allam, director of Britain’s MI5, and Igor Ivanov, the Russian director of the FSB, who was Division’s most highly placed asset and the man to whom Emma, or Lara Antonova, reported.
Connor could take himself out of the running. Likewise, Igor Ivanov was beyond suspicion. He could not risk outing the one agent who could out him. Allam was a possibility, but only if the leak had stopped there. It hadn’t.
The mole had likewise known about Connor’s visit to Malloy at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. The question was how. Had he followed Connor to NGA headquarters? If so, how had he discovered that he had visited Malloy? Or had someone told him about Connor’s destination and the object of his interest?
Connor replayed his conversation with the Marine helicopter crew chief. If he dared read between the lines, he could imagine that Emma had been forewarned to expect the Marine special operations team. Only one person other than Connor had been witness to his call to Bagram Air Base and had sat with him during every agonizing minute of the operation. Peter Erskine.
The number of suspects dwindled to one.
But here Connor’s exercise in deduction hit a wall. Erksine knew every detail of Connor’s trip to the NGA. There was no reason for his counterparts to torture Malloy for information he himself could provide his handlers. Unless, of course, Malloy was privy to information that even Connor didn’t know.
Connor rose and poured himself another measure of bourbon. No matter how compelling the evidence, he could not bring himself to believe that Peter Erskine was a spy in the pay of a foreign power. The man was a newlywed, a scion of blood so blue it was practically black, and, Connor had to admit, a damn good guy. To distrust Erskine was to distrust himself. But what other answer was there?
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Thank you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
It was Erskine, whether Connor wanted to admit it or not.
And if Erskine had told his handlers about Emma and about Malloy, there was no reason why he hadn’t told them about Jonathan Ransom.
Connor put down his glass and went to his desk, where he accessed his secure line and dialed a foreign number. To his frustration, no one answered. By now she was back in Israel, no doubt taking some well-deserved leave. The voicemail was a mechanical prompt.
“Danni,” he said. “It’s me. It’s Frank. Get to Islamabad as quickly as you can. Our boy is in trouble. Call me as soon as you get this. No matter what, call me.”
He hung up and called her superior at Mossad headquarters in Herzliya. He was put through immediately, only to be disappointed that his suspicions were correct. Danni had signed out for a week’s leave prior to leaving Zurich. She had not left any word on her whereabouts.
Despondent, Frank Connor hung up.
He could not lose another one.
54
Jonathan unpacked his clothing with care, placing socks and underwear in one drawer, shirts in another, and hanging his suits in the closet. The room was enormous. A tartan carpet covered the hardwood floor. The canopy bed was big enough to sail across the Atlantic, and the ceiling was high enough for a regulation basketball net. Connor had instructed him to act as if he were being watched every second of every day. There was no need to act. A bulky surveillance camera perched high in one corner dispelled any doubt about his privacy. Taking a towel from the bathroom, he leaped and managed to drape the cloth over the camera’s lens.
The blood panel lay inside a folder on the desk. Standing, Jonathan studied the results, but not before starting the chronog
raph on his wristwatch. A cursory study showed Balfour to be in moderately good health. His cholesterol was high. Enzymes indicated a problem with his liver. Maybe he had an ulcer. Still, there was nothing to prevent him from having reconstructive surgery.
Jonathan put away the blood panel and crossed to a sash window that looked down on the rear of the house. The motor court was directly outside, and to his right lay the stables and a large grassy meadow. To his left he could see the maintenance shed that had been the hub of so much activity. A van pulled up to the far entrance, and workers in blue coveralls unloaded a piece of machinery and dollied it into the shed.
He observed this for a minute. The activity, combined with the presence of so many armed guards and Balfour’s agitated behavior, convinced him that the arms dealer had taken possession of the nuclear warhead and that it stood at this very moment barely fifty meters away in the maintenance shed. He could also conclude that if Balfour wanted to move up the surgery to tomorrow evening, he expected his official business to be terminated by then, and that therefore he meant to deliver the warhead to his buyer sometime tomorrow.
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