“What’s wrong with St. Marks? I’m working practically alone-ah, with the woman I love-in my very own country; I have nobody local breathing down my neck, except the guy at the embassy. And you’re having the time of your life; your tennis game has never been better.”
“If we were a couple of years from retirement, St. Marks would be heaven,” she said. “But we have careers ahead of us. In another year, Langley will forget we’re here, and we’ll be left to rot on the vine. But if you could make Robertson as Barney Cox, the Brits would love you for it; maybe you could join MI6.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you. Think of some way we can make hay out of Barney Cox.”
“If we were the police, we’d be world-famous in an instant, have our pictures in every newspaper in the world, but that’s not who we are, is it? If we’re responsible for busting Cox, only the Agency is going to know; Langley is not even going to tell the Brits.”
“They’d be very pleased if we busted Cox for the Brits. They could lord it over MI6 for years.”
“Well, there is that. All right, you want me to see what I can find out at the tennis club?”
“Does Robertson play tennis?”
“He’s a new member; I checked.”
“You’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you?”
“I only checked today. I win the blow job!” She shucked off her nightgown.
“Hang on, I don’t even remember what the bet was about. How do I know you won?”
She grabbed him by the hair and drew his face into her lap. “Trust me,” she said.
They forgot about calling Lance.
25
Lance asked for and got an appointment with the director, and he presented himself at the appointed time. His morning conversation with Barker had been interesting.
“Good morning, Lance,” Kate Lee said, waving him to a chair. “What do you have to report?”
“We’ve identified a man in St. Marks as, possibly, Teddy Fay.”
“Great!”
“Stone Barrington interviewed a man at the airport who showed him a small airplane belonging to a recently arrived Englishman, calling himself Robertson. There’s no British paper on this character at all, so he’s obviously not who he says he is, and he more or less fits Teddy’s description.”
“Now what?”
“Problem is, Bill Pepper, on his own hook, has made a different identification.”
“Pepper’s our man in the casino down there, isn’t he? The computer whiz?”
“Right.”
“Who does Pepper think the man is?”
“He thinks he’s one of the four men who robbed a currency-transfer company at Heathrow a few months ago, name of Barney Cox.”
“I remember the incident; a hell of a lot of money, wasn’t it?”
“Over a hundred million quid.”
“Hard to handle that much cash, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but with careful planning, it could be done. Private jet to a country with amenable banks, numbered accounts, et cetera.”
“How much does a hundred million pounds sterling weigh?”
“Let’s see, the biggest sterling note is fifty pounds; you could get a million in a large briefcase.”
“So a hundred large briefcases would do it?”
“Or ten manageable-sized crates. As I recall, they used a large van to remove the money from Heathrow.”
“They’d need a big private jet, then.”
“Or a not-very-big cargo plane. Of course, the Brits would be all over that sort of flight.”
“They could truck it across the channel and fly from anywhere in Europe.”
“Yes, they could, if they waited for things to cool off enough.”
“So you think this Robertson could be Cox?”
“It’s possible.”
“Just as possible as if he’s Teddy Fay, then.”
“I’m afraid so. The reason I came to you about this is that Bill Pepper doesn’t work for me. He did me a favor and met briefly with Holly Barker to tell her what he knows about Pemberton. She was also interested in the evil Colonel Croft, né Benet, of Haiti.”
“Why?”
“Their cottage is bugged, and she suspects Croft, a logical assumption.”
“Have they blown their mission?” Kate asked.
“No, they’ve been careful. But as I was saying, Bill Pepper reports to Hugh English, through one of his deputies, and should you decide to mention this Robertson to the Brits, I don’t want to ruffle Hugh’s feathers by having him know that I’ve talked to Pepper without going through him.”
“Why didn’t you go through him?”
“Because I don’t think he would have given me permission. This was a benign contact, nothing that would jeopardize Pepper’s work down there. Also, Hugh English doesn’t know about our looking for Teddy, and I didn’t think you’d want him to.”
“Yes, well, there is that. Pepper has cracked the government computers down there, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, that’s how he began his background check on Robertson; he checked the info on his application to buy a house.”
“One thing about Robertson that doesn’t sound like Teddy: he has no paper in Britain,” Kate said. “It doesn’t sound like Teddy to create a legend with no paper behind him. All his experience is in new identities with a lot of depth.”
“I’ll grant you that, but Teddy can’t have the resources he did when he was at home, here. He may have taken a certain amount of paper with him-passports, that sort of thing-but to build an identity in depth, he’d need more than just an Internet connection. He’d need British passwords and codes that he couldn’t get without the Agency’s people and equipment. That may be why this identity is so shallow.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Kate asked.
“Nothing. But if you decide to pass Pemberton on to the Brits for a more thorough investigation, I’d like you to conceal your source from Hugh English.”
“Hasn’t Pepper already reported his suspicions to Hugh?”
“Not yet; his hunch is only a day or so old. I could tell him, on your instructions, not to report it until you’re ready.”
“I think that’s the best course for now. I’ll get back to you. And Lance, thanks for bringing this to my attention, even though it’s outside your purview.”
Kate watched Lance leave, then sat and thought about this. She should probably discuss it with her husband, since he and the British prime minister were close. He would not want to withhold anything from the British. Well, not for very long, anyway. She’d think about it later.
26
Lance went back to his office and sat at his desk, gazing out at the Virginia landscape. He had covered his ass with Kate, but he was still worried about Hugh English.
The longtime deputy director for operations would have been gone now, retired to some gated Florida golf community, had it not been for the very inconvenient murder of his chosen successor, Dick Stone. English was not a favorite of the director, since he had opposed her promotion to that office. He had been subtle, having many contacts on Capitol Hill, and, since he had removed himself from the succession, his opinion carried real weight there, but she had been confirmed anyway because of the depth of influence in the Senate of her husband. Still, English’s long history with the Agency gave him broad and deep support internally, and Lance, hoping for promotion to his job, didn’t want to run afoul of the man. Now, however, he had, almost inadvertently, tossed a potential hand grenade under Hugh English’s chair, and he was worried that it might go off at an inopportune moment.
His phone rang; Holly Barker was reporting in. He picked it up. “Lance Cabot.”
“It’s Holly.”
“What have you to report?”
“Nothing; you told me to stay away from Robertson, and that’s what I’ve done. I don’t know why you’d send me down here to find Teddy, then hold me back when we’ve developed a hot lead.”