The Short Forever (26 page)

54

THEY SPLIT INTO TWO GROUPS, EACH watching the cyclists. “There,” Stone said. “The saddlebags; there’s only one bike with large saddlebags.”

“You’re right,” Carpenter said. “And none of the other bikes has saddlebags at all. That’s Carroll!”

Then the bicycle with the large saddlebags split off from the other three and turned onto a dirt lane.

“Okay,” Carpenter said to the tech, “follow her, ignore the others, and let’s get Morgan back on the other screen.”

The tech got the bicycle in his sights. “It’s going to be easier now, since she’s on that little lane.”

“Show me Morgan,” Carpenter said.

The tech tapped more keys, and the image popped back onto the second screen.

“Where is he?” Carpenter asked.

“Let me pan around,” the tech replied.

“It’s the same spot,” Stone said, “but Morgan’s car isn’t there; he’s gone.”

“Find that car,” Carpenter said, “and be quick about it.”

“It’s not so easy,” the tech said. “It’s one thing to track the A car when you’ve got him in your sights, but finding him in a landscape is going to be nearly impossible.”

“I don’t care, do it!”

Stone watched the lone cyclist as she pedaled down the little lane. “Anybody got a map of the area?” he asked.

“Here,” Plumber replied, spreading a large-scale map of the area on a table. “She came up here from her house to the roundabout,” he said, pointing, “and then she left it here.” He ran his finger up the road. “She exited the paved road here, and she’s going up this lane.”

“What’s this?” Stone asked, pointing to a green area up the lane.

“It’s a copse of trees, with a clearing in the middle.”

“Look at this,” Carpenter said, pointing at the trees.

Carroll had cycled into the clearing, and a car was waiting for her. A man got out.

“Here’s the buy,” Carpenter said. “Get me Mason.” Somebody handed her a cellphone. “Mason? Close on the following map coordinates.” She read them off.

“We’ve got a problem here,” Plumber said, pointing at the map. Everybody gathered around him. “There are three roads out of the clearing, in different directions.”

“Dammit,” Carpenter said. She spoke into the cellphone again. “Mason, check the coordinates; there are three exits from the clearing; you’ve got to cover them all. I don’t care, pull your men off Morgan’s house and get them out there; I am
not
going to lose the device, and I am
not
going to lose Cabot. Do it!”

Stone went and stood behind the tech. “Are you having any luck locating Morgan?”

“Not yet,” the young man said.

“I think it’s very important that you find his car.” He turned to the other screen. “What’s Carroll doing?”

“See for yourself,” Carpenter said. Carroll and the man she had met were embracing. “Looks as though Cabot gives this lady a lot of personal attention. Any luck on Morgan’s car?”

“Not yet.”

“Zero in on Morgan’s house,” she said. “Let’s see if he returned home.”

“That’s easy,” the tech replied, tapping his keyboard. “Here we are; all is quiet.”

“Work outward from the house in circles; see if you can find him in the neighborhood. Maybe he stopped at the pub, or for groceries.”

“Will do,” the tech replied.

Carpenter moved back to Carroll’s screen. She stared at it for a moment, then laughed. “I don’t believe it!”

“What?” Stone asked.

“They’re fucking.” She pointed at the screen. They had spread out a blanket, and the principal view was of a man’s bare back.

Then the tech widened the view. “Here come our people,” the tech said. Cars could be seen approaching the copse from three directions.

Mason drove the lead car, and he was moving fast up the unpaved lane. Ahead, the trees beckoned, and inside them, the clearing. He was going to make this bust himself, he thought; it was going to be the high point of his career. He entered the trees, and ahead, he could see the clearing in the evening light. Simultaneously, three cars entered the clearing from each access road. A couple were lying on a blanket, naked, and they looked up. “Oh, God,” he moaned. He picked up the cellphone.

Carpenter’s eyes widened. “I don’t believe it. He’s who?” She snapped the phone shut. “Carroll is fucking her immediate superior at Eastover.”

“Then Morgan is our man,” Stone said.

“Find him!” Carpenter said to the tech.

“He’s not in the neighborhood,” the young man replied.

“Get somebody over to Morgan’s house,” Carpenter snapped at Plumber.

“We don’t have anybody; they’re all on Carroll.”

She picked up the cellphone. “Mason? It’s Morgan, no doubt, and we’ve lost him. Get over to his house and arrest him. Report back.”

“How long will it take him to get there?” Stone asked.

Plumber spoke up. “Four, five minutes.”

“I don’t believe it,” Carpenter was saying. “All this bike ride was in aid of was fucking her boss!”

“They couldn’t meet at either of their houses,” Plumber said. “These facilities frown on extramarital relationships.”

“Carroll is married?”

Plumber was checking a list. “Divorced, but her boss is married.”

“How about Morgan?” Stone asked.

Plumber checked his list again. “Never married.”

“So he lives alone?”

Plumber checked his sheet again. “No; he has a cat.”

Carpenter was back on the cellphone. “Mason, where are you? Well, hurry up!” She closed the phone. “He says he’s two minutes out.”

“Morgan won’t run,” Plumber said. “He has no idea we’re onto him. He plans to take his retirement on schedule, then retire somewhere with his new money, probably Spain, where we can’t get at him. I’ll bet he’s home watching telly right now.”

Dino came out of the bedroom. “What’s happening?”

“Lots,” Stone replied. “Who won the cricket match?”

“I have no idea,” Dino said. “Bring me up to date.”

Stone gave him a sixty-second recap.

“Mason’s at the house,” Carpenter said. “Get it onscreen,” she said to the tech.

The tech had it up in seconds; two cars pulled into Morgan’s driveway, and men spilled out of them. One opened the garage door; the others ringed the house, while someone at the front kicked in the door.

“Mason, report,” Carpenter said into the cellphone. “Mason? Where are you?”

Stone stared at the screen. He didn’t like this at all.

“Mason!” Carpenter shouted. “What? What’s happening?” She listened. “It’s still there?”

“The car,” Dino said. “I’ll bet it’s in the garage.”

Stone held up a hand for silence; he was listening to Carpenter.

She closed the phone. “Morgan’s gone,” she said. “His luggage is gone, and most of his clothes. The Morris Minor is in the garage, empty.”

“Is it a two-car garage?” Stone asked.

“Yes.”

“Then he had another car. The device was in the back of the Morris Minor; while Morgan painted, Lance took it and left the money in the car. Morgan drove home, garaged his car, then got into the other car, which was packed and ready to go, and just drove away.”

Carpenter turned to Plumber. “Full-scale alert—every airport, every seaport, every police patrol car. Photographs of Cabot and Morgan faxed everywhere, the continent, too. Call Interpol and explain the situation. I want them both back, and the device, too. Especially the device. What’s the longest Cabot and Morgan could have been gone?”

Plumber looked at his watch. “Forty minutes for Cabot; Morgan would have needed another, say, fifteen minutes to return to the house and leave again.”

“Establish a perimeter at eighty miles,” Carpenter said. “Right now, Cabot could be, say, forty miles away, driving fast, and Morgan less. Every road blocked; turn out the local police, but don’t tell them why we want these two.”

Stone picked up a photograph. “Is this Morgan?”

“Yes,” Plumber replied.

“I want to see his house.”

“Me, too,” Dino said.

Carpenter handed Stone the keys to the Jaguar. “Give them a map,” she said. “I can’t spare anybody to go with you, Stone.”

Stone took the keys and ran for the car.

“I want to drive,” Dino said.

55

DINO GOT THE CAR STARTED AS STONE got in. “Don’t waste any time,” Stone said.

Dino hung a right out of the carpark and found himself staring at a moving van coming straight at him in his lane. “Shit!” he yelled, whipping to the other side of the road and nearly running into the ditch.

“Sorry, I forgot to warn you about that first right turn.”

“Maybe I don’t want to do this after all,” Dino said.

“Shut up and drive,” Stone said. “Just remember which side of the road you’re supposed to be on.”

“Very weird, driving on the left,” Dino said. “But I’ll get the hang of it.”

“Soon, please.”

They followed the map into the small village and to Morgan’s street. All the houses seemed identical.

“It’s gotta be the one with no front door,” Dino said, whipping into the driveway.

They walked into the house to find Mason and his people pulling the place apart. A man appeared from the kitchen. “I found a safe in the garage,” he said.

Everybody trooped through the kitchen to the garage. There was, indeed, a safe, the door open, empty.

“He put that in for the device,” Mason said. The group started to pull the garage apart.

Stone motioned Dino back into the house.

“What are we looking for?” Dino asked.

“Anything that might give us a hint where Morgan has gone—travel brochures, reservation forms, anything. You take the desk.”

Dino began going through the desk drawers, while Stone walked around the living room slowly, looking at everything. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, but he would know it when he saw it. There was a large television set, and an easy chair and ottoman parked in front of it. On the ottoman was a stack of magazines; Stone began to go through them.

A television guide, a well-marked racing form, a couple of girlie magazines, and a travel magazine. Stone flipped through the travel magazine twice before he found something. A corner of one page had been dog-eared, then flattened again. The page was a continuation of an article on country inns that began earlier in the magazine; there was only one ad. “Take a look at this,” he said to Dino.

“Nothing in the desk,” Dino said. “No secret compartments, no travel receipts, nothing.”

Stone held out the magazine. “This page has been marked,” he said.

Dino looked at the ad in the lower right-hand corner. A photograph of a large country house dominated it. “What’s Cliveden?” he asked, pronouncing it with a long
i
.

“Cliveden, with a short
i
, was the country house of Lord Astor, before the war. His wife, an American woman named Nancy, who was a member of parliament, ran a very big salon there. Everybody who was anybody showed up at one time or another—George Bernard Shaw, Charlie Chaplin—and every literary or political figure of the time.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

“I read a book about it.”

“So why is this important?”

“It’s a hotel now, and it’s near Heathrow. Suppose Morgan wanted to lie low for a few days, until the heat was off at the airports, then beat it out of the country? He’s got to know everybody will be looking for him.”

“Could be,” Dino said. “You want to check it out?”

“Have we got anything else to do?”

“Nope.”

“Then let’s do it.”

They were on the M4 motorway, driving fast.

“Why aren’t we looking for Lance instead?” Dino asked.

“Two reasons: First, Lance is a lot smarter than Morgan, I think, and he’s going to be a lot harder to find; second, Morgan has my money.”

“And that’s the important one, huh?”

“You bet your ass; I don’t give a damn about the device, whatever it is, but Carpenter and her people don’t give a damn about my money, either.”

Following a small map in the magazine ad, they found the house.

“Jesus Christ,” Dino said, as they drove up the drive and came to the place. “I didn’t expect it to be so big.”

“Neither did I,” Stone said, getting out of the car. He took the photograph of Morgan from his pocket and showed it to Dino. “This is our guy.” Morgan was late fifties, heavyset, balding, with graying hair and a military mustache.

“I’ll bet he shaved before he left the house,” Dino said.

They walked into the building, into an enormous living room, ornately decorated.

“Wow,” Dino said under his breath. “This Astor guy knew how to live, didn’t he?”

They approached the reception desk. “Show them your badge,” Stone whispered.

“May I help you, gentlemen?” the young woman behind the desk asked.

Dino flashed his badge. “We’re looking for a man,” he said.

Stone handed her the photograph. “His name is Morgan, although he may be using an alias. It’s possible he’s shaved his mustache, too.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Sir William Mallory, and no mustache; he booked in a week or so ago, sent a cash deposit, checked in half an hour ago.”

“Where can we find him?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” the young woman said.

“What’s his room number?”

“He didn’t check all the way in,” she replied.

“Pardon?”

“He came to the desk; a porter brought his luggage; he registered, then he left. He seemed very nervous; he was sweating, I remember.”

“Did he show you any kind of identification?”

“Yes; he didn’t want to use a credit card, insisted on paying cash in advance, so I asked him for identification. He showed me a British passport.”

“Did he say anything?”

“He said he’d forgotten something at his London house; he’d have to go back for it.”

“How was he dressed?”

“A raincoat and a trilby hat, which I thought was odd, since the weather is so nice at the moment.”

“How much luggage did he have?”

“Two large cases and a sort of canvas bag.”

“Describe the canvas bag, please.”

“A kind of satchel, roomy, like a Gladstone. The porter told me after he’d gone that he’d insisted on carrying it himself.”

“Where would I find the porter?”

The young woman raised a finger and beckoned a man in a uniform. “These gentlemen have some questions about Sir William Mallory,” she said.

“Yes, sir?” the porter said.

“How did he arrive?”

“By car, sir.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Jaguar from the sixties—dark blue—quite beautifully restored, inside and out. His luggage was fitted to the boot, except for the valise.”

“Did you, by any chance, take note of the number plate?”

“It was a vanity plate, sir; B-R-A-I-N.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Back to London; he said he’d forgotten something important.”

“Thank you very much,” Stone said. He and Dino went back to their car.

“Good call, Stone,” Dino said, “but now we’re going to have to get Carpenter’s people on the case; he could be anywhere.”

Stone dialed Carpenter’s cellphone.

“Yes?” She sounded harried.

“It’s Stone. Morgan drove to Cliveden, a country house hotel; do you know it?”

“Yes, it’s famous, but how did you know he went there?”

“He left a travel magazine at his house with a page marked with an ad for the hotel.”

“Is he still there?”

“No, he came over all nervous while checking in, and left, telling the desk clerk that he’d forgotten something in London and had to go back for it.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes; he’s traveling under the name of Sir William Mallory, and he has a British passport in that name. Cabot got it for him, I expect. He’s driving a sixties-vintage Jaguar, dark blue, restored, with the number plate B-R-A-I-N. Should be easy to spot.”

“Stone, that’s very good. Would you like a job?”

“I’d like my money back,” Stone replied. “And if I were you, I’d double your effort at Heathrow; it’s very near here, and that’s where I’m going. Can you have somebody from airport security meet me at the departures entrance?”

“Which terminal? There are four.”

“International departures?”

“Terminal four; I’ll find a man for you.”

“Tell airport security he’s shaved his mustache, and he’ll be carrying a canvas valise; he won’t check it.”

“Right.”

Stone hung up. “Heathrow, my man.”

“This is a long shot,” Dino said.

“It’s the only shot we’ve got.”