each other to notice his presence. They wandered arm in arm into the pub.
Carver gave them a few seconds’ start while he put all his crap away in the briefcase. Then he went for a pint of his own.
No one paid the slightest attention to Carver as he sat nursing his lager and reading his paper. Wynter and his tennis-playing pals were sitting at the next table. Carver watched out of the corner of his eye and listened. Wynter, as always, looked the part: faded jeans, a dark-blue V-necked cashmere pullover worn over a plain white T-shirt, a top-of-the-line TAG Heuer watch. He didn’t attempt to impose himself on the conversation, but when he spoke he exuded a sense of relaxed good humor. His voice was neutral, with just a trace of his working-class London roots. Every so often he went a bit more Cockney, just for comic effect. But if he mocked something one of the other men had said, there was always a friendly smile, just to let them know that he was bantering, not seeking to cause offense. None was ever taken. It was a masterful performance.
Carver had spent the past few days studying every aspect of Kenny Wynter’s life. Grantham had given him the basic biography while they were still in Norway.
“Our Kenny was born in Kensal Rise, north London, May 15, 1961. His father, Reginald ‘Nutter’ Wynter, was a villain, robbed banks and security vans, didn’t mind who got hurt when he did it. Got sent down for twenty years soon after Kenny was born and died inside after fifteen. Kenny was brought up by his mother, Noreen. He was a bright lad, passed his eleven-plus exam, went to grammar school, and got into Oxford University. He graduated in 1982 with a first-class degree, a nice new middle-class accent, and a love of fine wines. And then he went into the family business. Our Kenny became a thief, just like his dear old dad. Except, being brainy, he did it very differently.”
Oh, yes, Wynter was a cold, calculating bastard underneath that cozy cashmere. No matter how friendly he might seem, there would always be a part of him sitting to one side, observing, emotionally detached. He would be perfectly happy using women for sex and decoration, without the slightest need for any greater emotional connection. The last thing he needed was any complication that would interfere with his working life. And when he received an assignment, he would carry it out without compunction, irrespective of its consequences, untouched by moral consideration.
Carver knew just how that felt.
55
FBI Special Agent Tom Mulvagh liked Kady Jones a lot. He thought she was pretty hot for a scientist, which helped. But mostly he just appreciated the way she got on with the job. She didn’t put on any airs. She’d laugh at a joke, instead of acting offended. Basically, she was cool.
That being the case, he’d been happy to put in a few hours following up her crazy theory about the general and the physicist. At first it seemed straightforward. Vermulen had made no secret of his initial movements. He and his assistant, Ms. Natalia Morley, had taken scheduled flights, first class, to Amsterdam, Vienna, Venice, and then Rome. They had stayed at the best hotels, but in separate rooms every time. Vermulen’s credit cards showed the kind of charges you’d expect from a man trying to get a woman into bed: restaurants, fancy stores, opera tickets. Some people would say it was pathetic, going to those lengths, but it was hardly a crime.
Next Mulvagh moved on to Vermulen’s phone logs, only to draw a blank. The general had a couple of cell phones registered in his name, but neither of them had been used for several weeks. At the hotels where he stayed, the phone charges were minimal. That made sense in one respect: Who paid hotel call charges if he could avoid it? But unless Vermulen had decided to avoid all telecommunications, he had to be using a phone of some kind.
Mulvagh tracked down all the corporations that listed him as a director, then checked all the phones registered to those corporations, then tracked their usage over the period Vermulen was in Europe. There was no correlation at all. Now Mulvagh was getting interested. He went back to the credit cards. They showed no record of any handset being purchased, nor of any call charges or time charges. That meant Vermulen had bought a prepaid phone, using either cash or a card that he didn’t want anyone to know about. He was meant to be a guy on an extended holiday, but these were the security precautions of an experienced professional on a mission.
It was time to bring in some help. Mulvagh had built up a pretty good working relationship with Ted Jaworski, over at Langley, and Bob Lassiter, the NSA’s man on the bomb team. He gave them the gist of Kady’s story, plus his own findings. They both told him he had to be out of his mind even thinking about this investigation, but he just about persuaded them to take a look, off the record. Then he went to the police.
The D.C. police were as defensive as any other cops when it came to liaising with the FBI, but once Mulvagh had persuaded the detective in charge of the Mary Lou Stoller case that he wasn’t trying to muscle in on anyone else’s investigation, they were able to have a useful conversation.
“This is just you and me talking, deep background, yeah?” asked the detective.
“Sure,” said Mulvagh. “I just need to know what you think went down. I don’t need proof. I want what your instinct is telling you.”
“Okay. Officially, this was a mugging gone bad. But what my instinct says is, That’s bullshit. Whoever killed Mrs. Stoller was a pro.”
“How come?”
“The job was too good. I mean, sure, they made it look like a mugging, but the area was clean. No trace evidence anywhere: no prints, no DNA, and the only footprints came from a new pair of standard Florsheim dress shoes, size ten. Totally untraceable-they sell thousands of those things. But it tells me something, anyhow. I mean, when did you ever know a mugger to wear Florsheims? And plus, your average street punk has less intelligence than the yucca plant my lieutenant keeps in her office-you know what I’m saying? Not forgetting that he’s most likely out of his mind on meth. So he’s going to make mistakes, leave evidence. Christ, you know what these bozos are like. But whoever did this job, trust me-they were not stupid. They knew what they were doing. And we ain’t ever going to catch them. That’s what my instinct tells me, Agent Mulvagh.”
“Thank you, Detective, I appreciate your honesty.”
“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what are the Feds doing making personal calls to check up on this particular investigation? God rest her soul, but Mrs. Stoller wasn’t anyone important.”
“No,” said Mulvagh, “but her boss is.”
