'We know who you are, Agent Simons.'
'So what?'
'So we have to make you a proposition. We find your presence here in the hotel disruptive.
We've made enquiries with your section chief in DC and have established that you are not here on official business.'
'I'm on vacation,' Teresa said, instantly wondering what had been said between these people and her office. 'Would you please let me pass through into my room?'
'Yeah, but you're not really on vacation, because you're kind of running a private investigation into the Gerry Grove case. The FBI say they know nothing about it, and haven't authorized you in any way. You're outside your jurisdiction, ma'am. Isn't that so?'
'It's none of your goddamn business, and it's none of the Bureau's business either. I'm on leave of absence.'
'As 1 understand the situation, the Bureau remains interested in whatever you do so long as you carry the badge. Anyway, we consider it to be our business. We checked into this hotel on the basis that the place would be otherwise vacant'
'That's between you and the hotel,' Teresa said, already grappling with a feeling of paranoia about what this young man or his associates might have been saying to her office. The last thing she needed right now was trouble at work. 'It's nothing to do with me.'
'I think you'll find we have ways to get you out of here.'
'Go ahead,' said Teresa, with some private amusement. 'Not many Americans feel like messing with the FBI.'
'What makes you think I'm a US citizen?'
'Sorry, my rmistake,' said Teresa. 'Now would you excuse me?'
'We need this hotel to ourselves,' said Ken Mitchell again. 'For that reason we have arranged an alternative room for you at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. Our company is prepared to pay the costs of relocation, and we request you to vacate your room by tomorrow. We also require you to quit making use of our corporate facilities in Welton Road.'
'What Is it with you?' Teresa said. 'Don't you ever listen, or what?'
'I listen, sure enough. But do you? We want you out, lady.'
'Tell me why and 1 might even consider it.'
'In this case we require the hotel for our sole use. We have a contract with the management'
'Not as far as they are concerned.'
'They are in error, which will turn out expensive for them if they are in breach of contract. In the meantime, either you leave of your own accord or we will take out a removal injunction against you. It's your choice.'
He hadn't shifted his position, looming unpleasantly close to her door. She was deeply reluctant to make physical contact with him, which she would have to do to open her door, but she reached forward with her keycard to see if he would budge. Apparently, he would not. She withdrew, and stood again a few feet from him, disliking and fearing him in almost equal measure.
'There are other ExEx providers,' she said. 'There's a place in Brighton. You can't stop me going there.'
'Suit yourself We're only concerned with our own corporate facility.'
'Why do you want me out?'
'You're disrupting our plans. We operate under a software creation licence drawn up within the draft Valencia Treaty, the European agreement to regulate freedom of electronic access. In the US we'd be operating under federal licence: the McStephens Act. You know what that is?'
'Yes, of course.' Something clicked in memory then; a training session last year; a subject she hadn't followed too well; areas designated sanitaire for software development; the right to serve notice to quit.
Mitchell said, 'US federal laws have no effect here, so we work under the European equivalent. The Valencia protocols don't have the same legislative muscle, but applied with full force they amount to the same.'
'Can 1 see your licence?'
It snapped into his fingers as if by sleight of hand. She bent forward to read it, and he held it still for her to do so.
'AH right,' she said. 'Why didn't you say that at first?'
'Why didn't you say you were a fed?'
'What about the hotel staff?' Teresa said. 'Are you getting them to move out too?'
'No, we need them.'
'Why them and not me?'
'Because they were here on the day of the Grove shootings, and you were not. They have memories of what happened, and you don't. We're interested in what they remember, and we're not interested in your theories.'
'I don't have theories.'
'Sure you do. Theories are what you're into. That's what we don't want. Your presence is disruptive.'
Teresa gestured in exasperation.
