“I take the view that if something bad can happen, I need to be ready to handle it.” Stone tossed off his sherry and stood up. “I’m going to bed, before you get me worrying.”
“Sweet dreams,” Dino said sweetly.
“Yeah, sure.” Stone went to bed.
48
Ali Mahmoud stepped outside the door of the large house where Dahai’s highest-ranked diplomats lived. It was an unusually warm and sunny morning, and he thought he might walk to the embassy. Then he saw the Comcast cable truck across the street, and a man wearing a tool belt up a utility pole, poking around inside a steel box at the top. Ali stretched, all the while eyeing the van from side to side, top to bottom. In the center of the O in Comcast, he saw a hole. Not a very big one, but a hole nevertheless. Something to think about.
He walked down the steps of his building to the sidewalk and turned toward Dupont Circle, near which lay his embassy. As he walked he heard a car stop behind him, and a mid-sized Japanese sedan drove slowly by, a woman at the wheel, a man in the front passenger seat, and a baby seat mounted in the rear. Neither of them looked at him, although he thought he saw the woman driving glance into her rearview mirror after she had passed him.
He walked on, and a man in a suit left an apartment building ahead of him carrying a briefcase, a newspaper tucked under his arm, also headed toward Dupont Circle. That’s three opportunities, Ali said to himself. Then the Comcast truck passed him and there was a small hole in the O on the other side of the truck, too. That’s four. He continued to the circle, crossed it, and walked the dozen yards to his embassy. Once inside, he went to an entrance hall window and watched the street for a moment. Down the street perhaps forty yards he saw the Comcast truck parked on the other side, its driver taking his tool belt from the rear and hooking it around his hips.
Ali took the elevator to his top-floor office and sat down at his desk. A year and a half he had been here, and all of a sudden he felt watched. Or maybe this feeling was a product of the hangover he had from last night’s party. He tried to shake it off.
He got up and swung open a fake bookcase, revealing a large safe behind it. He tapped in the combination, spun the wheel, opened the door, and removed his laptop and brought it back to his desk. While it booted up he phoned the embassy’s head of security. “In my office, now,” he said.
The man rapped on his office door less than a minute later.
“Come!”
The man walked in, looking nervous. “Yes, sir?”
“Come and sit down,” Ali said, indicating a chair across his desk. The man sat. “Did you make your usual rounds this morning?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, of course. I started at six AM and finished at around seven-thirty.”
“Was there anything — anything — out of order in the slightest degree?”
“No, sir. Everything was perfect. I ran all the security system checks and tested the firewalls, as usual.”
“Was there a broken window? A mark around the lock on a door? Anything at all that might appear insecure?”
“No, sir, not a thing. Everything was perfect.”
“There’s a cable repair truck down the street about thirty yards. Was that there when you arrived this morning?”
“No, sir, but there are cable trucks everywhere. They always seem to be repairing something — under the street, in a building, up a telephone pole.”
“Have you noticed a couple — a man and a woman — in a blue Nissan sedan with a baby seat in the rear?”
“No, sir.”
“I want you to sweep my office.”
“When, sir?”
“Now. Get somebody up here and go through the room, and be thorough.”
Shortly two men in coveralls arrived with ladders and began sweeping the bookcases, the bar, the concealed safe, his desk and chair, the draperies, and the carpet edges. They were at it for more than an hour.
Finally, their supervisor came back. “Your office is clean,” he said to Ali.
“How clean?”
“Squeaky clean, not a sign of anything — no cameras, no bugs, no anything.”
“Thank you,” Ali said. “Now get these people out of here. Go down to the garage and sweep all the cars.” They took their gear and left, and he felt a bit better.
He checked his e-mail. Only one message, in Arabic, interested him. The birds have arrived from the south and are nesting, it read. Finally, he thought. The attempt on the president’s life in London by some Al Qaeda affiliate or other had queered everything for a week, brought things to a halt. Now that the papers were reporting that the fourth man had died in the hospital, maybe things would return to normal.
One of his two cell phones vibrated on his belt, and he retrieved it. “Yes?”
“Did you get my message this morning?”
“Yes,” he said, irritated, “why would I not get it?”
“I’m simply being thorough,” the man said placatingly.
“Are the birds happy in their nest?”
“Chirping, just as they should. They are anxious to be out and about.”
“Not until you are absolutely certain that there is no interest of any kind in the house. They are not to go out, until then.”
“I understand.”
“And I want everything in the wine cellar inventoried and confirmed to be in perfect working order. I want no chance of a mistake, do you hear?”
“I understand perfectly. It will be done as you say.”
“I have had an e-mail this morning confirming the receipt of funds by the bank. There will be no check written, except those cashed inside the bank. They may use their cash cards at machines for day-to-day expenses.”
“I understand.”
“Be certain that the birds do, too. And keep them out of Annabel’s — it’s a nest of Americans, half of them CIA.”
“Perhaps that is too strict, Ali. They would not be out of place there, not attract attention the way they might at other places. I would see that they were accompanied.”
“Well, all right, you have a point. They should pay cash, though, no credit cards.”
“They are well-disciplined men, Ali, you should trust them more.”
“They have been cooped up at home for too long,” Ali said. “I don’t want them to start feeling their oats. I want them to view every stranger as a threat. I want them anxious and on their toes at all times.”
“They want to do some shopping, too.”
“All right, they can do that. Again, cash only.”
“A good decision. Is there anything else?”
“No, not for the present. Perhaps we will speak tomorrow.”
In a basement room at FBI headquarters a man picked up a phone. “Special Agent Phillips?”
“Yes.”
“Everything is working perfectly. His laptop must have been stored somewhere, but we’ve got their wi-fi now. You’ll want to read the e-mails. There’s an interesting phone conversation to listen to, as well, but, of course, we have only his end of it.”
“I’ll be right down,” Quentin said.
49
Millie’s phone rang as she was having breakfast in bed. “Yes?”
“Good morning,” Ian said. “We have a teleconference to attend with milady at ten. A car will collect you at nine-thirty.”
“All right. What’s the subject?”
“We’ll both find out together.” He hung up.
Millie hung up, too, and she picked up her iPhone to check her e-mail. There was an unheard voice mail message waiting. She pressed the button.
“Hi,” Quentin said. “We’ve got some new material, and it’s being forwarded to your friends across town. I expect you’ll be hearing from them about it. Miss you much.”