“Ah, yes,” Felicity said. “I’ve no doubt that they will be providing him with a complete identity package and a legend in due course, if they haven’t already.” She picked out a shot of the dinner table. “I know all of these people except this gentleman,” she said, pointing at Alex. “Anything on him?”
“A great deal, as it happens. He turns out to be an Englishman. You recall that you and I had dinner last year at the London home of the Duke of Kensington?”
“Of course.”
“Thomas is the duke’s family name, is it not?”
“It is.”
“The gentleman to whom you refer is Wilfred Henry Charles Thomas, the duke’s third son, who is also Earl of Chelsea.”
“I recall that the duke had an heir and a spare, but I thought that number three had been shuffled off into the Royal Army, the Royal Navy, or the Church, which are the usual destinations of third sons.”
“Apparently Wilfred exhibited a more independent streak. After studying at Harrow and Oxford, where he read languages, prominently including Russian, he set himself up as a dealer in rare and antique books, and also bookbinding, at a shop in the Burlington Arcade.”
“What a nice cover for a newly cultivated spy for the Russians,” she said. “I believe I have been into that shop once or twice.”
“As has Lance,” Stone added. “A little more history: Wilfred and a fellow named Elihu Sands, known as Eli, were friends from childhood and at school and shared rooms at Oxford, where they both found suitable girls to marry. It is rumored that Wilfred also found the time to impregnate Eli’s girlfriend, resulting in one Jennifer Sands, the brigadier’s new squeeze, who sits at the table next to Wilfred. Perhaps you can detect a family resemblance?”
“It seems quite obvious, now that you point it out. Do we know what the state of knowledge is among this group? Who knows what and who doesn’t?”
“I think we should assume that they all know, except Lady Thomas, who expired some four years ago. If he didn’t know at Oxford, certainly before his death Eli Sands had observed the resemblance of his friend, Wilfred, to his supposed daughter, Jennifer.”
“Very probably,” Felicity said. “Now, what does all this mean?”
“Lance and I were hoping it might mean something to you and your people because he doesn’t have a clue.”
“You overestimate my powers,” Felicity said. “It certainly explains the source of Jennifer’s net worth, and the new flat and new car. I rather think the girl might be in love.”
“Given what I know of the brigadier, I find that surprising. Perhaps you can give me a female’s perspective on the attractiveness of Roger to the opposite sex?”
“Medium, I should think,” Felicity replied. “Some women are as attracted to military rank as to money, and I imagine Roger has taken advantage of that over the years.”
They were called to dinner. Stone tasted and then poured the wine. “Something else,” Stone said. “Roger disappeared from anyone’s sight for, what, three days? We wonder where he went.”
“I believe I can shed some light on that,” Felicity said. “We lost him in the south London suburbs, and we deduced that he might have been headed to one of the airports south of London. We did our due diligence and discovered that a Falcon Jet departed Biggin Hill on that day with three passengers, filed for Copenhagen. Halfway there, however, the pilots changed their destination to Sevastopol International Airport, in Crimea.”
“Ah, a holiday in the sun,” Stone said.
“We had no track of him on the ground, but he was, no doubt, taken to a house on the sea, of which there are many, dating back to tsarist times. I expect he was made comfortable there while they indoctrinated him to a satisfactory degree.”
“Do you think Roger has inclinations toward the Russians?”
“I think Roger has inclinations toward money, and they have plenty of it to throw around, not to mention Jennifer’s fortune.”
“So, Roger has found both love and money.”
“It would seem so,” Felicity replied. “I wonder what it’s going to cost him.”
“Something else we might give some thought to,” Stone said.
“What might that be?”
“They’ve invested so much in Roger in a short time, and taken such pains to give him a new identity.”
“They certainly have,” Felicity admitted.
“The question arises: Why? What are they readying him for that would require so much effort? And why Roger rather than some clerk?”
“Yes,” Felicity said, “we will have to give that some thought.”
51
With sunlight streaming through the windows, Stone looked up at Dame Felicity, who was astride him and lacked only a whip in her inventory of inventiveness, for which he was grateful. She was smiling, and then her face became beatific, as she issued the noises of pleasure.
Finally she fell sideways into bed, limp. Stone was limp, too.
“Something we forgot last evening,” Felicity said, turning to face him.
“I didn’t think we forgot anything,” Stone said.
“Forgot to discuss,” Felicity said, giving him a light slap across the chops to focus his attention.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes, that.”
“What?”
“If our suppositions are correct, Roger has already performed a task for his Russian betters.”
“I forget,” Stone said. “What task?”
“The shooting of Vice-Admiral Simon Garr.”
“Oh, yes. He had drifted from my consciousness.”
“Well, if Roger was the assassin, why?”
“I believe,” Stone said, “having trained with him a bit at Station Two, that Roger had some skills with pistols and knives that might qualify him for such work.”
“Yes, but why Simon? He had been retired for two years and, rumor had it, was exhibiting signs of dementia. Why on earth would the Russians want him dead? And, it follows, why Roger to do the job? Lots of people are good with a pistol, and the range was only a few feet?”
“Did Roger have a connection to Garr?” Stone asked.
“They were at the Naval College together, Simon a year ahead of Roger.”
“It might be good to read both their dossiers from that time and see if there’s something else to consider.”
“Well,” Felicity said, “it couldn’t hurt.” She picked up her iPhone and tapped in a message. “There. People will be awake soon, and we’ll hear back.”
Stone sat up, picked up the room phone, and ordered breakfast, then he lay back. “It occurs to me that we would know none of this new information about Roger, or about his newfound friendship with the Russians, if you had not had him followed after you gave him the boot.”
“Probably not,” Felicity said.
“Do you have everyone followed who resigns or is fired?”
“Not usually,” she replied, “unless the leave-taking is by an employee who is sufficiently disgruntled to wish us ill.”
“And Roger was disgruntled, wasn’t he?”
“Look at it from his point of view,” she said. “First, he was transferred to Station Two, and the Scottish Highlands, in winter, is not a posting most officers of rank would think attractive.”
“One reason for disgruntlement.”
“Then, somehow or other, he’s sent to MI-6, to a posting that he is unqualified for, and he’s promoted to brigadier.”
“Would the rank come with the posting?”
“Probably. If one is a colonel and receives a promotion, then the rank would follow, or retirement. It’s the same in your services, I believe.”