“The couch?”
“I guess that’s just good tradecraft. You couldn’t let me sleep there. It’s too near the front door. I could up and go without your knowing it. You needed me upstairs, where you could keep an eye on me until your friends come.”
A sheen of sweat had popped out on Meadows’s forehead. “Friends? What friends? Jesus, Jonathan, get a grip! It’s me, Jamie, you’re talking to.”
But Jonathan wasn’t listening. He knew about Emma’s training. It was all about cover. He glanced toward the front door. “Are they coming now?”
It was then that Meadows discovered the letter opener. “Don’t do it,” he said, his voice rising. “Whatever it is you have in mind. Don’t. I’m not with Division. I’ve never met Emma. Swear on my children’s lives. Whole magic hands thing-coincidence. Something I must have heard somewhere. Pure chance.” He was rising from his chair, hands in front of his body. The sweat was coming now, gathering in his bushy eyebrows and sliding down his pink cheeks. “Pru!” Meadows began to call, but Jonathan was around the table and on him before he could get the name out. He clamped a hand over Meadows’s mouth and pressed the tip of the letter opener against his neck. “Quiet,” he said.
Meadows nodded furiously.
Jonathan lowered the blade, then removed his hand from Meadows’s mouth. “I need some money.”
“In my wallet. It’s on the counter by the key basket. Take whatever’s there. Should be several hundred quid. Take the ATM card, too. PIN’s one-one-one-one. Please, no lectures. It’s too easy, I know already. You can have my car, too. It’s a Jag. Fast as all hell. I won’t call the police. Not right away, anyway. I mean, later I’ll have to. Insurance and all that. The thing cost a fortune.”
Jonathan found the wallet and counted the bills. The total came to five hundred and seventy pounds. He snatched the car keys. “The one out back?”
Meadows nodded. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. You could have just asked.”
“Maybe, but then…” Jonathan caught himself. There was something in Jamie’s eyes that wasn’t right. The man was genuinely frightened. Jonathan knew with a sudden and complete confidence that it wasn’t an act. “You’re not with Division, are you?”
Jamie Meadows shook his head.
“You don’t know Emma?”
“Never had the pleasure.”
Jonathan sighed. Suddenly he felt very tired. “Will you wait until tomorrow to call the police about the car?”
Meadows waved off the question. “I’ll wait a week.”
“I’ll pay you back for the cash.”
“Whenever. Take your time.”
Jonathan nodded, turning toward the back door. He advanced one step, then stopped. There remained a last, nagging issue. “What about the conference? Why did you tell me that you’d been planning on going for so long?”
“It was my idea,” said Prudence Meadows, from across the room. “Couldn’t have you thinking we’d only just learned you were in town. You’d have become suspicious.”
She stood at the base of the stairs. She was wearing silk pajamas, and in her right hand she held a pistol.
27
“Pru, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jamie Meadows.
“Shhh, darling. We don’t want to wake the children.” She was screwing a fire suppressor onto the snout of the pistol. Finished, she held it at arm’s length, pointed squarely at Jonathan’s chest. “It was me Jamie heard. I was the one who commented on your magic hands. It was something Emma told me years ago. She never did stop bragging about you.”
“What are you talking about?” Meadows continued, if anything louder than before. “What the hell is that you’re holding?”
“Jonathan, do you want to tell him? Might as well, since you’ve seen fit to tell him so much besides.”
“Your wife works for Division,” said Jonathan, never taking his eyes from Prudence Meadows. “They’re trying to find Emma and kill her.”
“Nonsense,” protested Meadows, as if he weren’t staring at his wife six meters away, brandishing a semiautomatic pistol. “Pru? Tell him. It’s all a mixup. What is this Division you’re talking about, anyway?”
“It’s an intelligence shop run by the Americans,” said Prudence. “We have MI6. They have the CIA. Division’s just smaller and a bit more secret.”
“I don’t get it,” said Meadows.
“She works for the same organization that Emma did,” said Jonathan. “They undertake covert operations around the world to advance American security concerns. Mostly they kill people.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” remarked Prudence, advancing a step. She looked at her husband. “I might add that we only kill people who need to be killed.”
“I’ve never seen you before, have I?” asked Jonathan.
“I’m a desk girl. I run things in our London office. Or used to, I should say. After Emma’s stunt, they practically shut us down. Moved things to Lambeth. Lambeth! But no, we haven’t seen each other before. We can’t all be like your wife. Just as well. I’m a bum for languages. I’ve got my English accent. That’s good enough.”
“Your English accent?” said Jamie, perplexed. “You’re from Shropshire. Of course you have your English accent.”
“Don’t count on it,” said Jonathan.
Pru glanced at her watch, then went on. “Someone spotted you entering the country yesterday morning. The boss called and offered me full reinstatement if I could bring you in. Even a pay raise. We’re all very anxious to find your wife.”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Pru. He just wants to get out of England,” argued Meadows, on Jonathan’s behalf. “Go ahead, tell her. The police want him, but it’s a mistake.”
“Be quiet, Jamie,” said Jonathan. “I need to speak to your wife.”
“Did you meet her?” asked Prudence Meadows. “Is that where you went last night when you skipped out of the cocktail party?”
Jonathan didn’t answer. He saw Prudence check her watch again and guessed that others were on their way. It was imperative he leave as quickly as possible.
“So what did you have planned next?” Pru went on. “Hooking up with Emma down the road somewhere? It won’t be easy with every intelligence agency and cop shop on your tail. I don’t think a one-way ticket out of here is going to help much. It’s time to come in. Message to Jonathan: Division wants to help.”
“Is that what they told you to say?”
“Frank Connor’s word. You can ask him yourself. He should be here any minute.”
She closed the distance between them, moving with unsteady steps. Jonathan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and nonaggression, and as she came into the light, he saw that she wasn’t as cool and collected as she sounded. Her eyes blinked constantly and she was drawing each breath as if it might be her last. But then, like she said, she was office staff. Emma took care of the fieldwork.