Chapter 53
THEY WALKED UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR of the country inn, past a guard, and into a roomy, two-bedroom suite, which contained half a dozen men, most in their shirtsleeves, and several pieces of electronic equipment—radios, computers, and two large, flat-screen monitors. Thick wires ran from the equipment out a window, where Stone had seen the two men stringing wire, and he could see a small satellite dish mounted to the windowsill.
“What’s happening?” Carpenter said to one of the men. “Oh, this is Barrington and Bacchetti; they’re with me. Gentlemen, this is Plumber.”
“We’re just about set up,” Plumber said. “We’re expecting satellite contact any moment, and we’ve got great weather for it.”
“What have you done with the two subjects’ homes?”
“We couldn’t get anything decent with sonic equipment,” Plumber said. “They both live in official housing, and double glazing was installed a few months ago, so we can’t get anything off the glass. We’ve tapped both phones from the exchange, but since they’re both at work, we’re not getting anything.”
“Eyeball surveillance?”
“Nothing within five miles,” Plumber replied. “We figure that when Cabot arrives in the area he’ll canvass the neighborhood, looking for anything that might be surveillance, so we’re going to rely on satellite, until dark. After that, we’ll have taxis with local numbers painted on, but we’ll keep our distance. We’re going to place satellite tracker marks on both subjects’ cars, so we needn’t stay within sight.”
“Where’s Mason?”
“He’s running the on-ground operation; he’ll be in touch when something happens.”
“Anything else?”
“Bad news; Portsmouth let us down.”
“
“Something about a suspect merchant ship in the harbor; they’ve put all their people and equipment on that.”
“Do we have enough resources on the ground here to cover both subjects?”
“Maybe; that’s the best I can tell you.”
“Isn’t there anything else we can draw on?”
“No. Another team is on its way to Scotland, looking for a suspected terrorist who is supposed to be arriving in the Clyde on a tanker.”
“Shit,” she muttered.
“Satellite’s up,” a young man at a computer station said.
Everyone gathered around him. The image on the big monitor was of a building and a carpark. “Eastover internal security gave us the position of the two subjects’ cars.” He moved the cursor to a small car and clicked on it: an
“How about the houses?” Carpenter asked.
The tech tapped some more keys, and the screen divided into thirds. “Now you can see both Eastover and the two houses,” he said. “Neato, huh?”
“Stop speaking American,” Carpenter said.
Plumber spoke up. “Internal security at Eastover is tracking both Morgan and Carroll inside the building. They’ll know if either tries to take something out.”
“Tell them not to stop either one,” Carpenter said. “I want to bag Cabot and find out from him who his buyer is.”
“Righto.”
“Well,” Carpenter said, “we’ve nothing to do until the end of the workday, when our two subjects will leave the building. We might as well order some lunch.” She went to a desk and found a room-service menu.
By half-past five, they were ready for some action. Stone was reading an elderly copy of
“We’ve got movement,” Plumber said. It was one minute past five-thirty, and people were streaming out of the Eastover building.
“Typical civil servants,” Carpenter said. “Leaving on the stroke of quitting time.”
“We can’t identify individuals by satellite, but look, A’s car is on the move. There—so is B’s.” The cars pulled out of the carpark and turned in opposite directions.
A cellphone rang, and Plumber answered it. “Righto,” he said, then hung up. “We’ve got word from internal security that both subjects have left the building.”
“Were they carrying anything?” Carpenter asked.
“A wore a loose raincoat, and B had a bakery box, looked like a cake.”
“Did they search them on the way out?”
“I asked them not to, as per your instructions.”
Carpenter watched the screen as it divided in two, each displaying a car with a letter on top.
Five minutes passed. “They’re home,” Plumber said. “Both cars are garaged. The houses are virtually identical.”
“Government-issue,” Carpenter said.
“Right, but they’re on opposite sides of the village; both back up onto Salisbury Plain.”
“What now?” Stone asked.
“We wait,” Carpenter replied.
They did not have long to wait. “We’ve got movement on A, Morgan,” Plumber said. “He’s backed his car out of the garage, now he’s loading something, can’t tell what.”
Everybody gathered around the screen to see the man putting several items into the back of what seemed like a small station wagon.
“What kind of car is that?” Stone asked.
“Morris Minor Estate,” Plumber replied. “It’s from the fifties, and Morgan has carefully restored it himself; looks new.”
Across the room a man wearing headphones shouted, “B’s getting a phone call!” He flipped a switch, and, over a speaker, they could all hear the phone ringing.
There was a click, and a woman’s voice said, “Hello?”
From the other end of the connection came not a voice, but a whistle. The whistler performed a few bars of
“That’s a signal,” Plumber said. “Everybody alert; she’s going to move now.”
On the split screen they watched Morgan back his Morris Minor out of his driveway and head off down the street, his car still marked with an A.
“Oh, shit,” Plumber said, pointing at the other side of the screen. B was coming out of the garage, too, but not in her car; she was pushing a bicycle. On the back, a large pair of saddlebags could be seen. “We can’t put a tracker mark on her bicycle—not enough area showing to the satellite. This is going to be dicey.”
“Don’t you lose that bicycle,” Carpenter warned.
“I’ll do my best,” the tech said, “but with the marked car, the tracking would have been
