Collateral Damage (11 page)

Sir Trevor’s voice became shriller. “I deeply resent the insinuation that involving the properly authorized organizations would have caused the opportunity to be missed.”

“Sir Trevor,” the FO said patiently, “I would point out that it would have been impossible for you to react in the time available, and if you had done so, it is your people who would be dead now, instead of those belonging to your sister service. It would seem that you have much for which to be grateful.”

Sir Trevor took a breath but was stayed by the hand of the Home Secretary on his arm. “Trevor, Foreign Minister, I must say that, after Architect’s very succinct and comprehensive presentation of the facts, I believe her actions to have been proper . . . in the circumstances. I know very well from her past cooperation with the Home Office and MI-5 that she is aware of the duties, obligations, and limitations placed upon her service by the government, and I believe that she had no intent to violate any of them. As far as the Home Office is concerned, this matter is closed.”

“Thank you, Home Secretary,” the foreign minister said. “In that case, this meeting is closed, and any notes or minutes taken are to be destroyed. All questions from the press or media are to be referred to the Public Information Officer of the Foreign Office.” He closed the file before him, stood up, bowed briefly, and left the room. Before he turned down the hallway he looked back at Felicity and made a motion with his head, indicating that she should follow him.

Felicity gave the Home Secretary and Sir Trevor a polite nod, then headed down the hallway to the foreign minister’s office.

He motioned her to a chair. “Do you need a drink?” he asked.

“Thank you, no, Foreign Minister,” Felicity replied.

“Well, I do,” he replied, swiveling his chair to a cupboard and pouring himself a glass of sherry. He swiveled back to face her. “I consider that, with the help of the Home Secretary, to whom I will now be indebted for eons to come, we have dodged a bullet. I assure you, Architect, that should any other such bullets come this way, you will take them.”

“Of course, Foreign Minister. Is it your wish that I should henceforth defer to MI-5 in the matter of Jasmine Shazaz?”

“It is my wish that you should
appear
to defer to MI-5 in this matter, while pursuing Ms. Shazaz with all the resources at your disposal. It is this ministry that has been wounded, and I will not restrict the efforts of any member of it to put things right. I would suggest, however, that the next time a SWAT team is called for that it be provided by Special Branch, and that also extends to any bomb disposal work necessary.”

“I understand, Foreign Minister.”

“I wish you to know that I have already authorized that the full death benefit available be immediately provided to the families of the fallen officers, and I have instructed an official of this ministry to offer a generous gratuity to the surviving husband of the estate agent.”

“Thank you most kindly, Foreign Minister.”

“Please let me know if there is anything else I can do for your people.” He stood and offered her his hand. “Good day.”

She shook it. “Good day, Foreign Minister.” She left his office and took the lift down to the garage, where her car and driver awaited. She got in, rested her head on the back of her seat, and breathed slowly and deeply all the way back to the Circus. Then she got out of the car and went back to work.

—

Thirty miles up the Thames, Jasmine sat in a comfortable chair, not watching the cricket match that was on television. The rear doorbell rang, and she got up to answer it.

A look through the peephole revealed Habib standing on the back steps, and she opened the door to him.

He walked into the house wheeling a nylon suitcase behind him. “Your replacement explosive device, madam,” he said.

The president and first lady alit from Marine One at the White House helicopter pad and were escorted by a pair of uniformed Secret Service agents into the building and upstairs to the family residence. Their luggage followed shortly, and a valet unpacked for them.

“Drink?” Kate asked as they entered their living room.

“Have I ever replied in the negative to that question at this time of day?” Will asked.

“No, but a simple ‘yes’ would have gotten you a drink faster.” She poured them both one and took her time about delivering his.

“Point taken,” Will said sheepishly.

“Point scored,” she said, sitting down beside him. “I have a question.”

“Fire away,” he said, taking a gulp of his bourbon.

“May I take your sexual performance over the weekend as a harbinger of things to come during our retirement?”

“You may,” he replied, clinking glasses, then kissing her. “And you may have noticed that my enthusiasm increases when we are in Georgia.”

“I have noticed that,” she said, “which is why I haven’t insisted on a retirement residence in New York or Malibu.”

“Suppose I told you that I believe my enthusiasm in Georgia is due to the distance from Washington, rather than something in the Meriwether County water?”

“Then I would insist on an additional retirement residence.”

“In New York or Malibu?”

“Both.”

Will laughed heartily. “I’m not sure that the income from my memoirs will cover two additional houses.”

“You forget that I will be publishing my memoirs, too.”

“All right,” he said, “tell you what: I’ll buy the New York residence, and you buy Malibu.”

“T’other way ’round,” she replied. “Your memoirs will bring more than mine, and Malibu is more expensive than New York.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Will said. “After all, you’ve got your CIA background.”

“Most of which I can’t write about.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll buy the Malibu place.”

“Deal,” she said.

“I’m not sure how the Secret Service is going to take this news,” Will said. “I think they were counting on an easy life in the rural South.”

“I don’t think they’ll have any trouble finding volunteers for Manhattan or Malibu.”

“Good point.”

Kate’s handbag rang. She rummaged around in it for a moment, then, in frustration, emptied it onto the coffee table and found her cell phone moving across the shiny surface, vibrating.

“Yes?” she said, when she had cornered it against her compact.

“Director, it’s Holly Barker.”

“Hello, Holly. Has anyone ever put that to music?”

“No, but someone once wrote dirty lyrics to the tune of ‘Hello Dolly’ for my fortieth birthday party.”

“I suppose that was inevitable.”

“Apparently so.”

“What have you to report?”

“I have screwed the lid down a little tighter on Kelli Keane. One of our New York people has equipped James Rutledge’s apartment for video and sound.”

“Do they lead lives of quiet desperation?”

“Hardly, ma’am. You wouldn’t believe their sex life.”

Kate roared with laughter. “Be sure and copy me on the sauciest bits.”

“Certainly, ma’am.”

“Has the woman spilled any beans yet?”

“Not on our tapes, but our man discovered that the place had already been bugged with audio devices before he got there. Unfortunately, we were not privy to what was heard before our equipment arrived.”

“Any way to find out?”

“We can try to find out who purchased the previous equipment.”

“Please do. I worry about the New York station having too little to do.”

“It does seem very quiet whenever I’m there,” Holly admitted.

“It occurs to me that you always seem happiest when you return from New York. Is there something there that entertains you?”

“You might say that,” Holly replied.

“It occurs to me that you might manage this particular task more easily if you were at the New York station for a time.”

“Your suggestion is my command,” Holly said. “I’ll leave tomorrow morning.”

“And we may reach you at Stone Barrington’s number?”

“Nice try, ma’am. I’ll be reachable on my cell at all times.”

“Enjoy yourself, then, and let me know if there’s any change in the position of the lid on Ms. Keane.”

“Certainly, ma’am,” Holly replied. “Have a nice evening.”

Kate hung up.

“How’s that thing going?” Will asked.

“Holly appears to have a grip on the problem. So far, she’s getting video from the apartment of a lot of bedroom action.”

Will laughed. “So that’s what you were talking about: seeing the ‘saucy bits.’”

“It’ll have to do for fun, until we can have more non-D.C. sex,” she replied.

—

Holly called Stone.

“Hello, there,” Stone said. “Am I hallucinating, or did we just talk moments ago?”

“You’re not hallucinating. Think you can put up with me for another little while?”

“Funny, I was just thinking about putting up with you. How long do I get to do that?”

“I might stretch it into a week, unless something terrible happens somewhere in the world.”

“Something terrible is always happening somewhere in the world.”

“I mean somewhere in the world that requires my attention.”

“That would be right here in this house.”

“You say the nicest things.”

“I do the nicest things, too.”

“And I will look forward to that.”

“Is your trip to do with our Ms. Keane?”

“Yes, but that’s only an excuse to come.”

“Any excuse will do,” Stone said. “Let yourself in whenever you arrive, and I’ll book a table somewhere sumptuous for dinner tomorrow evening.”

“I thought
I
was going to be dinner.”

“You are going to be a very rich dessert.”

Herbie Fisher and Harp O’Connor were having dinner in the back room at P.J. Clarke’s, a regular hangout for them since they had met there at the bar.

“Herb,” Harp said, “how come you set me up for that sweep at Jim Rutledge’s place, then pulled me off?”

“I’m sorry. Did I mess up your day?” He began to think about lying to her.

“Just answer my question.”

Herbie made up his mind. If he started lying to her about the little stuff, it would soon spread to bigger stuff. “Stone Barrington asked me to pull you off.”

Harp chewed in silence for a moment. “Do you know why?”

“No, I don’t,” Herbie replied.

“You didn’t ask?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I find that very peculiar.”

“It’s like this, baby: there are only two or three people in the world that I trust completely, and Stone is one of them.” He almost stopped there but caught himself. “You are another.”

“I know why you trust me, Herb, but why do you trust Stone?”

“Because I have a long experience with him, and he has always been worthy of my trust.”

“Before I met you and heard you talk about him, I’d heard that he was just some kind of sleazy fixer for Woodman & Weld.”

“Stone likes to say that he handled cases for Woodman & Weld that the firm didn’t want to be seen to be handling. That doesn’t mean they were sleazy cases, just sensitive ones.”

“Well, I have to admit that he went way up in my opinion when we were in L.A. and found ourselves having drinks and dinner with the president of the United States. How’d that come about?”

“Well, I’ve never had a substantive conversation about that with Stone, but I’ve picked up fragments here and there.”

“Gimme some fragments, I
love
fragments. I make my living on fragments.”

“Did you meet Holly Barker at that dinner?”

“Tall, auburn hair, good body?”

“That’s the one. Holly works at the CIA, for the director. The first lady?”

“I got that. I read the papers when she got the appointment.”

“Holly got Stone and Dino involved with some CIA business or other down in the islands a few years back. I’ve never known what it was about. I think Stone met the president about that time. Then there was that thing when he and Dino went to Washington at the president’s request a year or two ago to investigate some old murders that a friend of the president’s, now dead, had been accused of.”

“Yeah, that one made the papers.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s not all that much.”