luggage waited. He picked up the big brown bag and snapped out the handle to wheel it along. The suitcase beeped at him, telling him that while it had been prodded and dropped and kicked — a large black smudge on the side near the base attested to this rough handling — it had not been opened or tampered with.
Dean pulled it along through the hall to the customs area, where he took a spot at the end of the snaking line. Dean surveyed the crowd, casing it to see if he had been followed. In his brief stint with the NSA he’d learned that paranoia could be extremely healthy, but he’d also learned that picking a really good trail team out in a crowded place could be next to impossible.
If he was being followed, it was at least being done by pros.
“Let’s move along now,” said a female customs agent at the front, opening a new station. Dean pulled his luggage up and took out his passport, which was in his name. He handed it and the questionnaire to the clerk.
“Business or pleasure?”
“I’m here for a scientific conference,” said Dean. “But I do hope to get a little pleasure in.”
“Science, really?” said the woman. “What of?”
“Biology,” said Dean. “Bacteria and viruses.”
“I see.” The woman looked as if she might start quizzing him, and Dean wondered about the timing of her arrival — she’d opened up a station just as he got to the head of the line. Had she been sent by Desk Three to test him?
Or was something else going on?
“Yeah,” said Dean, noncommittally.
“Thick glasses,” said the clerk.
“Trifocals,” said Dean. He smiled apologetically and held them as if adjusting his vision. “Getting old.”
She took his passport and looked at it under a special lamp to make sure it was authentic — or in this case, an authentic forgery. The two college girls he’d followed earlier were now at the station on his left. One made a joke when the customs agent asked why they had come, and they were given a lecture about the employment situation in Great Britain. (Not pretty, according to the agent, who noted that Her Majesty’s government could not have illegal workers “mucking about” and taking jobs from legitimate citizens.)
“That way,” said Dean’s customs agent, clearing him through.
Lia stood next to the line for the ATM, watching the escalator up from the lower level. British intelligence had an operation going to track the arriving scientists — she’d seen them pick up on a pair of Russians earlier, tagging their luggage with a small locator bug and then following them onto the airport shuttle into the city. For some reason they hadn’t tagged Dean — whether because he was American or hadn’t been listed on the original list of conference attendees wasn’t clear.
Lia had one of the ops in sight. They were easy to spot, lacking luggage and knowing far too much about where they were. The man made no move as Dean walked past, nor did he touch his ear to use his radio.
“You’re going to lose Dean,” warned Rockman in her ear.
“That’ll be the day,” she said, circling around the escalator. She paused to adjust her shoulder bag, moving the strap button so it focused on a brunette near the coffee seller.
“What’s Sylvia doing here?” said Rockman.
“My point exactly,” said Lia.
Sylvia Reynolds was a former CIA officer who did contract work for the FBI and occasionally British MI-6 and MI-5, respectively the external and internal intelligence organizations of the United Kingdom. Lia watched as Sylvia paid for her coffee, then began walking toward the terminal entrance. It wasn’t obvious that she was following Dean, which of course made Lia suspect immediately that she was. Dean had found his way to the taxi queue and was standing about twelve fares back.
“Tell him to go downstairs and take the express,” said Lia. “Let’s make sure she’s on him.”
“Good idea,” said Rockman.
Lia went back inside, spotting a pair of Russian SVR officers coming through the door lugging their bags. There were going to be more spies in London than scientists.
The Russian foreign service agents were veteran holdovers from the days their spy agency was known as the KGB. Lia put her hand to her face as she went through the door, nearly bowling over a bleary-eyed American tourist who was carrying a baby in a backpack. Dean, meanwhile, had given up on the taxi line and was waiting for an elevator to the basement level, where he could take the shuttle to London.
Lia circled through the large shop area, trying to avoid giving the airport security cameras a good shot at her face. Sylvia Reynolds had followed Dean to the elevator; Lia saw her get in the car with him.
“He know she’s following him?” Lia asked.
“We didn’t tell him.”
“Why the hell not?”
“He’ll be more natural if he doesn’t have to act natural.”
Typical Art Room logic, thought Lia.
She went down the stairway, coming out as Dean walked through the hallway into the shuttle tunnel. Tickets were sold at a machine on the wall, but as she approached it, Rockman warned her that the train was arriving. Lia veered toward the tunnel, deciding she’d have to buy it on board.
The train came in just as she reached the platform. She slipped into the last car, holding her carry-on luggage and watching through the glass as Reynolds found a seat in the next car up. She couldn’t see Dean, but Rockman told her he was in the next car as well. The com system blanked as the train started; it was supposed to provide complete coverage to a depth equal to two basement levels, but there was a gap between supposed-to and reality.
Lia took out her handheld and clicked on the transmission detector mode; there were no signals being sent in her car. She had started to get up to check the next car when Rockman came back on the line.
“I’m going up to the next car,” she told him.
“Sylvia may recognize you,” he said. “Hang back.”
“She’ll see me sooner or later. Did you figure out who she’s working for?”
“It’s not really a big deal at this point.”
“You don’t think she’s his contact?”
Obviously the idea hadn’t occurred to them, because there was a long pause. Telach came back on the line.
“We may be able to psych it out on this end without announcing that you’re there,” she said. “There’s no reason to think she’s involved. The contact will come at the conference.”
“Why?”
“Because we haven’t answered the E-mails; we just registered him as Kegan’s last-minute replacement.”
“Like she wouldn’t have accessed the information already?”
“Lia, she’s working for the Brits. Just stay in the background for now, all right?”
“Suit yourself.”
Lia reached into her large bag and pulled out a tourist guide. The book contained eight pages of detailed maps of the area and hotel they’d be working; while she had the same information on her handheld, there was a certain quaintness to using the guidebook. It also saved on the battery.
In a few moments they were outside of the airport tunnel, hurtling toward London. And then, not….
The train slammed on its brakes, and Lia, caught by surprise, found herself flying into the Plexiglas liner of the luggage compartment.
Dean braced himself as the brakes slammed on, warned by a change in the sound of the train’s wheels — a benefit of having grown up in a town where trains ran through regularly.
“Trouble,” he whispered to his runner.
Dean was sitting next to an emergency exit and eyed the bottom of the glass as the train screeched to a halt.
“We’re with you,” said Rockman in his ear. “There’s a woman following you named Sylvia Reynolds. Brown sweater, brunette hair, about forty. She’s with the Brits but we’re not sure why she’s trailing you. She’s in your
