multimillion-dollar project and keep it secret? Wouldn't that have to be somebody with a lot of clout? Like somebody who owns lock, stock, and barrel a high-end computer company? That gives us Goswell. And wouldn't Goswell's chief of personal security have to have some idea who Bascomb-Coombs was? Any op worth his pay-check would surely run background checks on people who cozied up to his boss. If it was me watching over a rich man's health, I'd want to know everything about everybody who walked in the door. I'd make it my business to know what visitors had for breakfast, where they ate it, and how big a tip they left.'
'You're saying that Bascomb-Coombs is the mad hacker, that Goswell knows about it, and that Peel also knows. Your logical chain is weak, even assuming the first link in it is as solid as steel.'
'Stands to reason if they are all sitting around having tea together, doesn't it?'
Cooper gave him a small smile. 'Come now, Alex, people who have tea together don't share all their secrets, do they?'
Alex flushed. John Howard turned and suddenly found a fascinating spot on the empty wall to stare at. Cooper's smile grew bigger and warmer. These actions didn't prove anything, but taken together, on a sudden, deeply intuitional level, an icicle of solid nitrogen formed and stabbed Toni in the heart:
Alex cleared his throat and said, 'Look, we know Peel is connected to Ruzhyo and the death of a suspected ice man.'
'The fellow in the bookstore was, according to the coroner, a suicide.'
'After Ruzhyo or Peel shot him! Peel knows something about all this. You know I'm right. Pull him in and let's sweat him before more people die and millions of lives are disrupted.'
There was a long pause. Toni stared at Cooper with the new suspicion still piercing her to her soul. All of the rest of this was nothing. It didn't matter about Peel or Goswell or Ruzhyo. None of that was important.
Had Alex betrayed her? Surely not. He couldn't have. Could he?
She felt sick.
Cooper said, 'All right. I'll have to get DG Hamilton to sign off on it, but I suspect we can do that much in the interests of national security.'
Chapter 37
Ruzhyo took a couple of deep breaths and blew them out, trying to relax. He had been growing more tight as he drove, gripping the wheel harder, hunching forward, and that wouldn't do, to be tense when he needed to be loose. A tight man could not move properly. Even knowing that, it always happened. You had to work to overcome it, despite all the years and bodies.
Ahead of him and one lane over, the gray Neon with the two men in it who had been following Peel since London cruised fifty meters behind the major's car, using traffic as cover. So intent on tailing Peel had they been, they had not noticed Ruzhyo.
As soon as he had spotted them, Ruzhyo had made the call and had spoken but one word: 'Company.' That had been enough to alert Peel.
He'd replied. 'Got it. I'll call back later.'
They had passed Gatwick Airport a few miles back, still heading south on the big motorway as if going to the Sussex estate. The mobile phone on the car seat next to him rang. Ruzhyo picked it up. 'Go ahead.'
'Have they made you?'
'No.'
'Good. We're getting off at the next exit, about two miles ahead, heading east. Down that road three miles, there is a large oak tree at an intersection with a narrow road to the right. Two miles down
'Yes.'
Ruzhyo thumbed the connection off. He accelerated and pulled smoothly ahead of the surveillance car, passed Peel, and was half a mile ahead of them when he turned off the highway at the next exit. The shadowers paid him no attention.
The oak tree was where it was supposed to be — Ruzhyo measured the distance with his odometer — and the barn, in front of a field of grazing sheep, sat alone and quiet in the middle of a long stretch of nowhere. A perfect place to have a chat you didn't want anyone to overhear.
Ruzhyo pulled his car into the barn and shut the door behind it. The place was dusty and smelled of dry hay, wool, and something like hot candle wax. Farm smells, bringing with them quick lances of memory from his days with Anna. He checked out the exits. There were two more at ground level besides the one he'd pulled the car into, and two openings on the upper level, with hoists and ropes and pulleys dangling from them. Peel was a professional; he would pull his car in and get out in such a way as to allow somebody hiding in the barn a clear shot at his followers when they left their car. Probably in front of the smaller door on the building's southeast side, he figured.
Ruzhyo checked the magazine in the Firestar, making certain that a round was chambered. He cocked the hammer and put the safety back on. There might not be any shooting at all; if it became necessary, he had eight shots, and seven more rounds in a second magazine, if he had to reload. No semi auto was jam-proof, but he had adjusted the magazines and polished the feed ramp, and the bullet ogive was clean and rounded enough so there shouldn't be a problem. After firing a few rounds when he'd gotten the piece, he had hand-cycled a hundred cartridges through the action without a misfeed. At this range, if he had to shoot, he'd only need a few to work, and the first one was already there.
He heard the sound of an approaching engine, easily discerned in the quiet pastures. He took another deep breath and let it out, stretched his neck, and rolled his shoulders. He was ready. He would follow Peel's lead.
Peel pulled his car onto the hard-packed dirt next to the barn and circled to his left to force the following car to pull in between him and the building. He stopped, loosened his pistol in its holster, and alighted from his car. He kept the door open and stood partially covered by it. He didn't see Ruzhyo, but he had noticed the fresh tire prints leading to the barn, so he knew the man was in there. If it was him, Peel would set up behind that door right across from his car, and he bet that the ex
The Neon pulled off the road and right into perfect position. The car stopped in a light cloud of dust, and as the reddish gray powder settled, two men got out. They wore windbreakers, and they had the moves of somebody carrying firearms, which they certainly had hidden under their jackets. But they didn't look like coppers, at least not civilian ones. One was a medium-tall brunette, the other a shorter, stockier man with mouse-brown hair cropped short. Were they military? Or Intelligence? What the bloody hell?
'Good afternoon, gentlemen. May I help you with something?'
Mouse-brown said, 'Major Peel. We wonder if you would come along with us, sir.' Not a question.
'If you'll explain who you are and what you want, maybe we can keep this civilized.'
'We didn't come to answer questions. We'll send somebody for your car. You'll be riding with us.'
'I shouldn't think I'd want to do that,' he said.
'Then we must insist,' Medium-tall said. 'Please step over here, sir. And keep your hands in plain sight.'
'Insist all you want. I'm minding my own business, and I don't believe it is any of yours.'
The two exchanged glances, and without speaking, split up and drifted away from each other. This was standard procedure if you were facing a man you considered armed and dangerous. Even if he was very fast on the draw, he would have to swing his weapon from one to another with two opponents, and the farther apart they were, the harder that would be — especially if both opponents were prepared to shoot back. They still had not pulled their own weapons, and that was to his advantage.
