“This is the man who tells you what to do.” Lieutenant Cromwell’s angry voice boomed over the phone line. “Let me make this simple. Do what they say. That’s an order…straight from the chief.” The phone went dead.
Gerrit shrugged and passed the phone back to the senator. Anybody but Cromwell, he’d have asked to speak to the chief.
“Now that we have that matter cleared up,” Summers slipped the phone into his pocket, “there’s a commercial flight scheduled to take off in less than an hour. You are going to be on it as John Gerrity. Understood?”
Gerrit nodded and stole a quick look at Marilynn. Stoically, she sat and stared at her hands.
Summers tapped on the glass separating them from the driver. The limo began to roll toward the terminal. They left the tarmac, rolled through a guarded gate, and pulled onto a city street. Gerrit glanced out the side window and saw they were pulling up to the curb in front of British Airways east of the main terminal.
“Cheerio, Gerrit. Have a good trip.” Summers extended his hand. Marilynn shot him a quick smile, the first since he climbed into the limo.
Gerrit edged toward the door, grasping the envelope.
The driver came around and opened the door. Gerrit started to step out when the senator called out, “Let’s not have any further contact, shall we? Just get word to Marilynn if you need to talk. Otherwise, take your lead from Kane.
“And Gerrit,” the senator added. “You’ve been reassigned to the State Department. Those documents you’re holding provide diplomatic immunity. Cromwell has been filled in on what he needs to know. Don’t expect to be hearing from him any time soon.”
Gerrit crouched and stepped outside. He turned to face the senator. “Is there anything else about my future I should know about?”
Summers smiled. “If there is, you’ll be told, soldier.”
The driver closed the door, already holding Gerrit’s overnight bag in his hand. “Here you go, sir. Have a good trip.” The man tipped his hat and walked around to the driver’s side.
“I’m a U.S. Marine, you pompous ass,” Gerrit muttered, watching the limo pull away. Entering the terminal, he sought out a bathroom stall where he could privately trade his true ID and related documents with the falsified ones. What would the penalty be if he was caught?
In the last twelve hours, he seemed to have relinquished his own life-and identity-for something as ill defined as national security. That euphemism called national security covered a lot of ground, and he heard it got a lot of people in trouble on Capitol Hill. He thought of another good Marine-Colonel Oliver North-who faced a political hurricane while trying to serve his country under the name of national security. He hoped Senator Summers and the others knew what they were doing. It was Gerrit’s neck sticking out here.
A few minutes later, he left the bathroom stall and made his way to a security checkpoint. A woman in a blue TSA uniform took his airline ticket, boarding slip, and passport.
“So, Mr. Gerrity. Traveling to London?”
He nodded, getting used to his new name.
She handed him back the documents. “Have a nice trip.” As he walked away, a reflection in the glass allowed him to see that the woman was still following his movement. She looked until he could no longer see her in the glass. Glancing back, he saw her questioning another passenger, then turn toward the next person waiting to be cleared.
His lips felt dry and his chest tight.
As he watched airport security screen each passenger, he wondered why he felt so guilty if he was acting in the country’s best interest. Maybe it was the fact he didn’t have a clue what this was all about. A pawn in a game in which he did not understand the rules or the objective.
Hopefully this guy Richard Kane could enlighten him. He would just have to wait and see.
She watched as John Gerrity disappeared past the last checkpoint, gathered his belongings, and strode in the direction of his departure gate. She pulled out her cell phone and hit a preset number, watching the target disappear from sight. A moment later, a man’s voice answered. She glanced toward the departure gate one last time.
“He just cleared security, sir. Should be boarding in just a few.”
“Did he seem suspicious?”
“No. But he seemed…wary. Kept watching me as he walked away.”
The man’s emotionless tone sounded like an automated answering machine, but his words invoked fear in her. “You’d better not have raised his suspicions. Otherwise…”
The line went dead. With shaky hands, she lowered the phone.
Chapter 8
London, England
A blond flight attendant, her white-capped teeth dazzling against deeply tanned skin, leaned over and spoke softly. “We’ll be landing in just a few minutes, sir. Pilot tells us he expects we’ll go directly to the terminal upon arrival. Please buckle up.”
Gerrit gave her a smile and reached for his lap restraint, clicking it into place. Only moments before, he’d watched the plane slice through a bank of clouds, leaving a pale moon behind in their wake. Darkness enveloped them. Once through the gloom, lights far below seemed to beckon.
Flashing runway lights hurled beneath them in a blur, and he leaned back to prepare for a jolt as wheels touched down. Fifteen minutes later, Gerrit shouldered a flight bag as he made his way into the terminal, still reeling from the last eight hours of sleepless travel.
As he cleared Customs, a man came alongside him. “Mr. Kane extends his greetings and wanted me to give you a lift, sir. This way.” The man spoke with a southern drawl, extending a left paw the size of a grizzly as he grabbed Gerrit’s bag. Lefty had a pancake nose and eyes of a boxer, shifting and calculating, an unspoken warning for those around him to be wary.
Gerrit followed Lefty through the terminal to a gray Rolls-Royce already parked along the curb, engine running. Another man sat behind the wheel. Lefty flung Gerrit’s bag into the trunk before opening the rear door. His head jerked toward the open door.
The car peeled away from the curb the moment Gerrit’s rear end touched leather. He eased back and watched the air terminal fade away, looking out on a dark, rain-swollen sky. Once on the ground, he saw the clouds close in to suffocate London with sleet and ice.
Maybe he could talk Lefty into loaning him an umbrella. Everyone in this part of the world must have one-just like Seattle. As the car weaved through traffic, Gerrit laid his head back and closed his eyes. His mind, though tired, refused to relax. Questions kept popping up like sparks from a fire. What was so important that he was yanked from a case five thousand miles away to a meeting in this foreign country? And who was Richard Kane? He had to be powerful to make a U.S. senator dance to his tune. To authorize Spyman from CIA, State, or whatever to hand deliver falsified top-quality documents. It was clear Kane wielded clout.
But to what end?
Another red flag rose back in D.C. when he saw Marilynn willing to stand in her father’s shadow, to melt into the background during their brief encounter at Dulles. She never took a back seat to anyone-including her father. Totally out of character for this woman he’d come to know, publicly and intimately.
Gerrit’s mind must have wandered off in deep thought during the ride because the next thing he knew, the car pulled over and Lefty stood outside, opening the car door. Easing out of the car, Gerrit’s lower back felt stiff from all the sitting he’d done during the night.
A recent dusting of snow coated the ground and chilled the early morning air, giving him just enough briskness to shake lingering sleep from his tired brain. Lefty, bag in hand, led him toward a light stone dwelling on the corner of what appeared to be two residential streets.
Shielded from the snow above by a pillared portico, Lefty lumbered up the expansive marble stairway to an elevated landing and rapped twice on a heavy wooden door. A gray-haired butler, face impassive to the point of
