key people in the area who, de facto, became his eyes and ears. The advantage of being in Manggis was that neither the village nor the surrounding area was highly populated. Unlike Kuta and Ubud, only a smattering of tourists found their way to the area, so it wasn‘t difficult to identify the patients who came to see the doctor. By this homespun method, Ian Bowles stood out like a sore thumb. However, Willard wouldn‘t act until Bowles revealed himself one way or the other.
Ever since he‘d been released from his undercover duties at the NSA safe house in rural Virginia, Willard had pondered long and hard how he could be of best use to the clandestine service, which functioned as his mother, father, sister, and brother. Treadstone had been Alexander Conklin‘s dream. Only Conklin and Willard himself knew Treadstone‘s ultimate purpose.
He went about this work with extreme caution because he was laboring under a handicap Conklin never had to deal with. In Alex‘s day the Old Man had signed off on Treadstone. All Conklin had to do was to fly below the CI radar, to make good on the goals he‘d promised the Old Man, while working on his own agenda deep in the shadows. Willard did not have the advantage of such support. As far as Veronica Hart and CI were concerned Treadstone was as dead and buried as Conklin himself. Willard was far too canny to believe Hart would allow him a restart, which meant that he had to work clandestinely within one of the world‘s largest clandestine organizations. The irony wasn‘t lost on him.
As he followed Bowles out of the compound and down a deserted lane he reflected on how fortuitous Moira Trevor‘s phone call had been, since this remote island off the CI grid was the perfect place to begin the resurrection of Treadstone.
Up ahead of him, Bowles had stopped beside a motor scooter, parked beneath the shade of a frangipani tree. Bowles took out his cell phone. As he pressed the SPEED DIAL key, Willard unfurled a thin metal wire with wooden handles on either end. Stepping quickly up behind Bowles, he whipped the wire around the other‘s throat and pulled so hard on the handles Bowles was lifted onto the tips of his toes.
The New Zealander dropped his cell, reaching around behind him to make a grab at his unseen assailant. Dancing out of the way, Willard maintained the lethal pressure on the wire. Bowles‘s gestures became more frantic. He tore into the flesh of his own neck in his frenzy to breathe, his eyes bulged in their sockets, red threads mottling the whites. Then there was a sudden foul stench and he collapsed.
Unwinding the wire, Willard scooped up the cell and, as he walked briskly away, checked the number Bowles had been dialing. He recognized the first digits as those of a Russian cell phone. The call had failed, and he walked into Manggis to a spot he knew to be cell-receptive and hit REDIAL. A moment later a familiar male voice answered.
Willard, momentarily stunned, nevertheless gathered himself and said,
— Your man Bowles is dead. Don‘t send another, then hung up before Leonid Danilovich Arkadin could say a word.
When Moira left Stevenson she walked opposite the direction she needed to go. She spent twenty minutes following circuitous routes, checking in car side-mirrors and plate-glass windows, looking for a tail, and when she had assured herself that she wasn‘t being followed, she walked back to where the car was waiting for her three blocks west of the Fountain of Poseidon.
The driver saw her coming and got out of the car. Not looking at her or acknowledging her in any way, he walked toward her. They passed each other close enough for him to hand off the keys without stopping or even breaking stride.
She went past the parked car, crossed the street, and stood looking around as if unsure which way to go. In fact, she was scrutinizing the environment, breaking it down into vectors, which she inspected for anyone in the least bit suspicious. A boy and a girl, presumably his sister, played with a golden Lab under the watchful eye of their father. A mother wheeled her baby carriage; two sweaty joggers dodged in and out, listening through in-ear plugs to iPods attached to armbands.
Nothing seemed out of place, which was precisely what worried her. NSA agents on the street or even in passing cars she could deal with. It was the people who might be placed behind building windows or on rooftops that concerned her. Well, there was no help for it, she thought. She‘d done the best she could, now it was put one foot in front of the other and pray that she‘d slipped any surveillance that might have been attached to her once the two NSA agents had left her at Bethesda Naval Hospital.
As an added precaution, she pried the SIM chip out of her phone and ground it beneath the heels of her shoe. She kicked it into a storm drain in the gutter, then chucked her cell in after it. She had the key in her hand as she approached the car from across the street. She crossed in front of it and dropped her handbag. Kneeling down, she dug out her compact, used the mirror inside to check the underside of the car as best she could. She checked under the rear as well. What was she expecting to find? Nothing, hopefully. But there was always a chance that a passing NSA agent had left a bug on the under chassis.
Spotting nothing suspicious, she unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. It was a late-model silver Chrysler that her own mechanics had customized with a muscular turbocharged engine. Finding the laptop and the burner beneath the seat, she ripped off the burner‘s pristine plastic wrap. Burners were disposable cell phones loaded with pre-paid minutes. As long as you didn‘t use them for too long, you were safe talking on them, and no one could use the SIM to triangulate your position as they could with a registered cell.
Fighting an urge to fire up the computer right there, she turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, and nosed out into traffic. She was no longer comfortable staying in one place too long; neither did she feel safe going back to the office or even her home.
Heading back across into Virginia, she drove aimlessly for close to an hour, after which time she could no longer control her curiosity. She had to find out what was on the thumb drive she‘d lifted off Jay‘s corpse. Did it hold the key to what was going on between NSA and Black River that, according to Stevenson, held all of the DoD in thrall? Why else would Noah and the NSA come after Jay and now her. She had to assume the DC motorcycle cop was bogus-that he was, in fact, either NSA or Black River. Stevenson had been terrified. The whole scenario chilled her to the marrow.
Passing through Rosslyn, she suddenly became aware that she was famished. She couldn‘t remember the last time she‘d eaten, apart from whatever they‘d given her this morning in the hospital. Who could eat that stuff? More to the point, what kind of chef could concoct such tasteless, overcooked mush?
She turned onto Wilson Boulevard, drove past the Hyatt, and pulled over into a parking space several car- lengths from the entrance to the Shade Grown CafA©, a place she knew inside and out and thus felt safe in. Taking the laptop and the burner with her, she got out, locked the car, and hurried into the steamy interior. The smells of bacon and toast made her mouth water. Slipping into a well-worn cherry-colored vinyl booth, she gave the plasticwrapped menu a cursory once-over before ordering three eggs over easy, a double portion of bacon, and wheat toast. When the waitress asked if she wanted coffee, she said, — Please. Cream on the side.
Alone at the Formica table, she opened the notebook so that the screen faced her and the wall behind her.
