them. A doctor requisitioned to meet the plane before departure, another doctor requisitioned for meeting the flight in London. If your former agent is injured… it could be her. Of course it could be an ancient Agency fart traveling with a medical condition.’
‘You said meet the plane. Where else has it been?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘You can’t find another requisition for today’s travel?’
‘No. But it must be domestic. A tight lid is kept on domestic data, and I’m not cleared for it.’
‘What’s the ID on the case for the flight to the U.K.?’
‘Also classified, but joint ops with British intelligence. That’s all I know.’ The voice started getting nervous. ‘You better get this under control, Jargo…’
‘It’s under control. Hold on.’ He got back on the phone with Galadriel. ‘I want to know if there were any cellular calls placed today from jet phones in our Ohio territory to southwestern Virginia. Cross-reference it with any known CIA or federal numbers in that area.’
‘I’m not sure I can trace aviation calls,’ Galadriel said. ‘I don’t know if the calls are handled differently.’
‘Just do it. Search for satellite calls as well.’
He heard the hammer of keystrokes. He waited long minutes, listening to fingers dance on a keyboard as she wormed her way into databases. Galadriel hummed tunelessly as she worked. ‘Yes. Just one, if I’m reading the data correctly. Went through a transmitter near Goinsville, Ohio. To a number keyed to North Hill Clinic, due east of Roanoke, at two forty-seven this afternoon.’
They had been to Goinsville.
Jargo closed his eyes, considered his narrowing options. You must construct every trap so that if the prey escape, they do not believe they were in a trap of your making. The hardest lesson he had ever learned, but the philosophy had kept the Deeps in the shadows, kept them alive, made them rich. He’d racked his brains all night and day today, trying to construct a way to lure Evan out into the open, lure him back into their world to simplify killing him while making Mitchell believe they were rescuing Evan.
But perhaps this wasn’t a disaster. Rather, his best chance yet to rid himself of every headache, every threat.
Goinsville. They might have found nothing; what was there to find? Nothing. His life there was a past no one remembered. But they’d found something. London was the next stop in the thread. He could not ignore the possibility that Evan knew far more than his father thought he did.
Certain times called for a slow cut; other times required a final slash across the throat.
It was time to be brutal.
He got back on the other phone. ‘I still need your help.’
‘What do you want?’ the voice asked.
‘Want. What a concept, want.’ Jargo knew the pain it would cause Mitchell. He wasn’t blind to suffering; pain was irrelevant. Jargo would suffer his own setback as well. But he had no choice. ‘I want a bomb.’
THURSDAY MARCH 17
31
T he London-based CIA field officer – his name was Pettigrew, he didn’t offer a first name – picked them up at a private airstrip in Hampshire. He carried himself with an impatient air. Pettigrew was closemouthed as he hurried them to a car, driving them himself to a safe house in the London neighborhood of St. John’s Wood. He took his time, circling in roundabout routes, and Evan, who only knew London well enough to find Soho and the London Film School, got lost along the drive.
Pettigrew didn’t speak a word to them on the way.
It was early afternoon in London, and they had, to Evan’s surprise, left the rain in Ohio. The sky was clear, the few clouds thin cotton. Pettigrew shut a wrought-iron gate behind them as they went up the house’s front stairs.
Pettigrew escorted them to tidy, unadorned rooms, with private baths, and they both showered. A doctor waited to change Carrie’s bandage and inspect her healing wound. When they were done, they followed Pettigrew into a small dining room where an elderly woman brewed strong tea and coffee and served a lunch of cold meats, salad, cheese, pickles, and bread. Evan drank down coffee with gratitude.
Pettigrew sat down, waited until the elderly lady had bustled back into the kitchen. ‘This is all damned odd. Being ordered to dig up Scotland Yard files with cobwebs on them. Taking orders from a man with a code name.’
‘My apologies,’ Carrie said.
‘I have top clearance,’ he said. Almost peevishly. ‘But I live to serve. We didn’t have much notice’ – his tone held the acid of the long-suffering – ‘but here’s what we found.’
He handed them the first file, squiring the remaining two close to his chest. ‘Alexander Bast was murdered, two shots, one to the head, one to the throat. What makes it interesting is that the bullets came from two different guns.’
‘Why would the killer need two weapons?’ Carrie said.
‘No. Two killers,’ Evan said.
Pettigrew nodded. ‘Vengeance killing. To me it speaks of an emotional component to the killing. Each killer wanting to put his imprint on the act.’ He slid them a picture of the sprawled body. ‘He was killed in his home twenty-four years ago, middle of the night, no signs of a struggle. Entire house wiped down for prints.’ Pettigrew paused. ‘He worked for us for twenty-three years before he died.’
‘Can you give me more details about his work here?’ Carrie asked. She and Evan agreed that she, being a CIA employee, would drive the questioning. An ID Bedford had provided named Evan as a CIA analyst, but he stayed quiet.
‘Well, among Bast’s many creative sidelines, he dabbled in art, he dabbled in sleeping with celebrities who frequented his nightclubs. Drug arrests at one of his clubs lost him his cachet, and he burned thousands of pounds trying to keep them afloat. We looked hard at him then, we don’t want agents involved with illegal narcotics, but the drug dealing was simply a few of his regular customers abusing his hospitality. After the clubs closed, he focused all his energies on his publishing firm, which he owned for quite a while but had been his most neglected business. He published literature in translation, especially Spanish, Russian, and Turkish. Imported permitted books back into the Soviet Union, translated underground Russian literature into English, German, and French. So he was a valuable contact, given that he could reach into the dissident community in the Soviet Union and that he could travel somewhat freely back and forth. At first his handlers suspected he might be a KGB agent, but he checked out clean and got cleared on every follow-up. We watched him closely during his financial troubles; that’s a time when an operative might be bought. But he always came out clean. He was popular with the dissident Russian community here in London.’
‘So what exactly did he do for the CIA?’ Carrie asked.
‘Couriered data from his contacts’ contacts in and out of Berlin, Moscow, and Leningrad. He was handled by American embassy officers under diplomatic cover. But he was low-level. He didn’t have access to Soviet state secrets. And the dissident community was not particularly useful to the Agency at that point in time – they might give us names of people who had critical access and would spy for us, but dissidents were too closely watched by the KGB. Too easy, frankly, for the KGB to infiltrate.’
Evan studied the picture of Bast, murdered. Bast’s eyes were wide in horrified surprise. This man had known Evan’s parents. Played an unseen role in their lives. ‘No suspects?’
‘Bast lived a high life, even after his fall. A few husbands were rather unhappy with him. He owed money. He broke business deals. Any number of people might have wanted him out of their lives. Of course, Scotland Yard didn’t know about Bast working for the CIA, and we didn’t tell them.’
‘Rather important information to withhold,’ Carrie said.
‘I didn’t personally. You needn’t sound peevish.’
