“Ah, well, congratulations, Lance.”
“Thank you. I’m calling to brief you with a situation on St. Marks.”
Tiptree immediately wondered what Cabot could know about St. Marks that he, himself, did not. “Yes?”
“I have an operative in St. Marks who is investigating the possibility that Teddy Fay is alive and on the island.”
Tiptree nearly laughed but decided silence was the better move.
“Are you acquainted with Teddy Fay?”
“I’ve heard about him, of course, but we never met.”
“My operative’s name is Holly Barker; she is using the cover of a real person named Virginia Heller, called Ginny, who operates a flying school in Florida, and she has a passport and other identification in that name.”
“Right.”
“She is traveling with two men, Stone Barrington and Dino Bacchetti, and a woman, Genevieve James. The two men are contract consultants to the Agency; the woman is just for color. They are traveling as vacationers and staying at the English Harbour Inn.”
“I understand; do they require my assistance?”
“Not at the moment, but I wanted you to be aware of their presence on the island. Barker and Barrington have already met with Bill and Annie Pepper. I had hoped to remove them all from the island tomorrow, but, as you know, travel restrictions have been imposed since the murder of Colonel Croft.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that; I was sitting on a bench next to Croft when the bullet struck him.”
“That must have been an interesting experience,” Lance said drily.
“Indeed; my clothes are at the cleaners.”
A young embassy officer knocked, entered Tiptree’s office and placed a sheet of paper on his desk. Tiptree nodded, and the man left.
“Lance,” Tiptree said, “it appears that Barker and Barrington do require my assistance. I’ve just received a telephone message from Bacchetti, saying that the two of them have been arrested by Croft’s successor, Colonel duBois, in connection with Croft’s assassination.”
“That’s preposterous,” Lance said. “They had nothing to do with it, but we suspect that Teddy Fay might have. Their only orders are to locate Teddy and verify his identity, then to report back to me.”
“Then I had better get over to police headquarters and see what I can do about shaking them loose before Colonel duBois gets too enthusiastic in their interrogation. I regard the man as worse than Croft, a loose cannon.”
“I understand,” Lance replied. “Do not, repeat, not bring State into this. Call me when you know more.” He hung up.
Tiptree hung up and buzzed his secretary. “Have my car brought around immediately,” he said, then hung up. He turned to his computer and began entering the names of Virginia Heller and Stone Barrington. In less than a minute he was printing out color copies of their U.S. passports. He put them in his briefcase, closed it and walked out of his office.
“Your car is waiting,” his secretary said.
“I’m going to police headquarters to try and obtain the release of two American citizens who have been detained, Virginia Heller and Stone Barrington. Alert the ambassador and tell him they are my good friends. If you haven’t heard from me in an hour, get him moving on it, but tell him Langley says not to involve the State Department.”
“Right.”
Tiptree set off on his second journey of the day to police headquarters. He hoped to God no more blood would be spilled. Blood only complicated his life.
44
Stone sat, still handcuffed, on a very uncomfortable chair before a desk in an otherwise bare room, more angry than frightened. It was clear that the chair he sat in had been constructed with the idea of discomfort in mind, and he was sure that he was about to be interrogated. He ran over the details of Holly’s cover in his mind, just to have everything straight. He stood up, walked to a wall and leaned against it.
A door opened and duBois entered. “Sit down,” he said.
“Thank you, no. What is the meaning of this?”
DuBois walked over and backhanded him. “Sit down and shut up, except to answer my questions.”
Stone felt a trickle of blood running down his cheek. DuBois had been wearing a ring of some sort. Stone sat down.
DuBois sat at the desk and removed a legal pad from a drawer. He took out a pen and held it poised over the pad. “What is your name?”
“Stone Barrington.” He spelled it.
“Occupation?”
“Attorney at law.”
“Show me identification.”
It was awkward with his hands cuffed, but Stone managed to retrieve his passport from his inside jacket pocket and toss it on the desk.
DuBois looked at the photo inside, compared it to Stone and noted the passport number. “Why did you kill Colonel Croft?”
Stone blinked. “I had nothing whatever to do with the death of Colonel Croft.”
“Where were you when he was killed?”
“When was he killed?”
“If you continue to be obstructive I will use unpleasant means to extract this information.”
Stone shrugged. “If you do that I will, of course, confess to anything you like, then repudiate the confession at the first opportunity. I want to see someone from the American Embassy immediately, and I want to see my attorney, Sir Leslie Hewitt. Until I do I will have nothing more to say, unless, of course, you torture it from me. I also wish to speak to Sir Winston Sutherland at once. He and I are personally acquainted.”
It was duBois’s turn to blink. He got up and left the room without a word.
Holly, though she did not know it, sat in a room identical to the one Stone occupied. She didn’t like being handcuffed. She got out of the uncomfortable chair, walked around the desk and rummaged in the drawers until she found where they had put her handbag. She unzipped an inside pocket, removed a handcuff key, opened the cuffs, then tucked the key into her bra and put her handbag back into the drawer. She tossed the cuffs onto the desk and sat down again.
DuBois entered the room and sat down at the desk.
“Why have I been arrested?” Holly asked.
DuBois raised his eyes from the legal pad before him; then he saw the handcuffs. “How did you get out of those?”
“One of your people removed them,” she replied. “Why have I been arrested?”
“What is your name?”
“Virginia Heller.”
“Occupation?”
“Flying instructor; I own a flying school in Florida. Why have I been arrested?”
“Give me your passport.”
“It’s in my handbag, which was taken from me and placed in one of your desk drawers.”
DuBois opened drawers until he found the handbag; he turned it upside down and emptied the contents onto the desk, then he picked up the satphone. “Why do you have this?”
“It belongs to my gentleman friend; he loaned it to me so that I can keep in touch with him while I’m out of the country.”
DuBois put down the phone, opened her passport, compared the photo to her and noted the number. “Your friend, Mr. Barrington, is being charged with the murder of Colonel Croft; you will be charged as his accessory, which carries the same penalty as murder, that of hanging.”
“That’s preposterous,” Holly said. “We came here on vacation and for no other reason. We met Colonel Croft only once, at the English Harbour Inn. Why would we want to kill him?”
“Perhaps you were hired. Who hired you to kill him?”
“My friend is a prominent lawyer in New York; I have already told you what I do. We are not hired killers. Check out our backgrounds; that should be easy enough. Mr. Barrington is a retired New York City police officer, and I have a website that you may visit. I want to see Mr. Barrington.”
“Mr. Barrington is indisposed.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Holly demanded.
“Miss Heller, I caution you to be careful how you speak to me.”
“Very well, I will not speak to you again, until I have seen and spoken to Mr. Barrington.” She folded her arms and stared at a spot on the wall across the room.