Will stood in front of Truro Heights Irving Big Stop, on McClure’s Mills Connector Road. It was a 24-7 gas station, but what was important to Will was that it was the largest truck stop in Truro.
The lot was to the left of the station forecourt and shop; despite the driving snow the lights from both gave him glimpses of parked trucks. Will kept away from the lights, moving down one edge of the forecourt and behind the 24-7 until he reached the parking lot. There was a single row of sedans, and two rows of sixteen trucks. Three of them had cab lights on and engines running, the rest were unlit. He imagined that most of the drivers would either be grabbing coffee and provisions while swapping notes with other drivers about destinations and road conditions, or were asleep in their cabs or in a nearby motel. No one from the shop or gas forecourt could see him as he moved in near pitch-darkness from one vehicle to another, checking their registration plates. Fourteen trucks had Canadian plates and were therefore no good to him; two of them had U.S. plates, one from Maine, the other from New Hampshire.
He withdrew the lockpick set he’d retrieved from the Russian cache and started working on the rear door locks of the Maine trailer. Two minutes later, both locks were open. The trailer was full of cardboard boxes with pictures showing their contents were televisions. A full container was no good to him because it meant the American truck was heading farther south into Nova Scotia, rather than returning home after making its delivery. He shut the door, locked it in place, and jogged to the New Hampshire truck.
This one had more basic padlocks and chains, and it took him half as long to open them. He pulled open the trailer door and breathed a sigh of relief. The truck was empty. Unless he was mistaken, this was a truck that had no need to be in Canada anymore, one that had to get home so that its driver could collect a paycheck, grab a day’s rest, and get back on the road. Like Will right now, truckers liked to stay on the move.
He entered the cold, long trailer, snapped the padlocks shut when the door was nearly closed, and sealed himself inside the trailer. He was now completely blind. The Canadian border with Maine was approximately 250 miles away. It had seventeen border controls, but the truck driver would be using the International Avenue crossing, since it was the only one that permitted commercial traffic.
He had to assume the cops who’d given him a ride would subsequently establish or be told the real identity of the man they’d picked up outside Truro, and that meant the Canadian border would be reinforced with armed officers. That was bad news for everyone, because if cops stopped the truck and opened the trailer, they’d be confronted by a man at the far end of the container who’d be pointing two pistols at their heads.
Will wondered how long it would take before the driver got it on the move. One hour later, he had an answer. The engine rumbled, causing the trailer to vibrate.
Then the truck started pulling away.
TWENTY-TWO
Though it was four ten A.M. in Washington, D.C., Marsha had no intention of going home to get some rest. Instead, she was working through the night at her desk, making and receiving calls from security service and law enforcement officials who were operating in different time zones.
One of her cell phones rang.
A man spoke to her. “I’m Inspector Campbell, RCMP H Division, Nova Scotia.”
“Inspector — what’s the latest?”
“Two of my guys picked up a male hitchhiker outside of Truro. His story for being on the road seemed plausible, but we subsequently showed the officers a photo of Cochrane. They think it’s a probable match.”
Marsha was motionless. “Probable?”
“Yeah. We got a sketch artist to copy the one photo we have of Cochrane, but make his face a bit thinner and add a short beard. My guys are convinced it’s him. I’ve got patrols all over Truro.”
Marsha looked at the map above her desk. “Forget Truro — you won’t find him there. He’s heading for the border. Get men there ASAP!”
The taxi firm told Ellie Hallowes that a driver would be at the address in thirty minutes. Ellie snapped shut Helen’s cell, glanced at the CIA analyst, who was passed out on the sofa, and turned off the alarm clocks that had been programmed into her cell and in the adjacent bedroom’s clock. If later challenged by Helen, Ellie would ask her whether she remembered declaring in the early hours that they should carry on drinking until sunrise and to hell with wake-up calls and work.
She opened Helen’s closet, selected clothes that were frumpy and similar to those Helen was wearing, unzipped her overnight bag containing the wig and other items, and set to work.
At eight fifty A.M. Ellie Hallowes used Helen Coombs’s ID to enter the security gates in the lobby of the CIA headquarters. She felt totally calm and focused, despite the possibility that someone might see through her disguise, grab her, and pin her to the floor. It was the same feeling she always had when going undercover. She likened it to putting on a suit of armor.
Underneath her pleated skirt, jacket, and frilly blouse, she had padding around her hips and stomach. Her wig covered her throat and the sides of her face, to hide the fact that there was nothing she could do to make it puffier. Plus, her thick-rimmed glasses and carefully applied rouge and other makeup had altered her appearance sufficiently, she hoped.
After taking an elevator, she waddled down a corridor in the way that Helen had done when she’d entered the bar yesterday evening. She was fully cognizant of the dangers — Helen could be awake now and on her way to work; she might have realized her CIA ID was missing and alerted Langley’s security department; someone could pass Ellie in the corridor and challenge her; hidden cameras in the headquarters could be watching her; and someone at the reception of the place she was headed toward could look at her ID and her face and say, “I know Helen Coombs, and you’re not her.” But Ellie didn’t let any of these possibilities worry her. Worry had no place in her line of work.
Langley was buzzing with people arriving for work, and with others who’d already been here for an hour or so. She stopped by the entrance to the Russian and European Analysis division’s archive room. Of all of the archives in Langley, this was without doubt the one that contained the CIA’s most sensitive secrets. She was going to try to steal one of them.
She entered the big hall, at the head of which was a wide reception desk with ten computer screens in a row and people behind them, beyond that a room resembling a library that kept all of its books behind combination-locked steel shutters. But in here there were no books; instead there were paper files that recorded all of the developments relating to the Agency’s Russian spies as well as ongoing and closed operations against Russia.
The Herald files were in here, containing Ellie’s contact reports and intelligence briefings.
She wasn’t interested in those files.
She looked at the archive employees. Hundreds of other Agency officers would use this archive, but there was still a real risk that one or more of the people working here knew Helen Coombs.
The place was busy, with officers lining up in front of the reception desk to get access to files they were cleared to read. None of them were allowed beyond the desk, so they had to wait patiently while members of the archive went off to retrieve the files.
Whom to approach? Not the archivists who were approximately Helen’s age — they might socialize with the analyst or at least make the effort to engage in small talk with her every time she came in. Or the old guy who looked like he was head of the archive and probably made it his business to get to know the people who came in. That left the bored-looking young man.