Dark Zone

a,” he said. He put his hands on hers to let him go, but she wouldn’t. “Tommy started that. He thinks it’s funny. He thinks everything is funny.”

“Oh, God, Ray,” she said. “Oh, God. Thank God.”

“Yeah. Him and Rubens. He paid those Russians who picked you up a fortune to sit on their butts for the last two days in case something got messed up. They had to dump a bag of money at the airport to — supposedly. I think they probably just pocketed it.”

“Oh, God, Ray. Thank you. Thank you.”

“Look, I gotta go fly the plane. The Russians’ idea of an autopilot is a two-by-four against the yoke, you know what I mean? Come on up front with me.”

“OK.”

She released him and followed him to the cockpit, where she sat in the first officer’s seat. He fished around near the center console and came up with a headset for her.

“Better snap yourself in,” he told her. “Lot of turbulence. We’re going to land on Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. From there I don’t know what the Art Room has in mind.”

Lia leaned her head back gently against the seat, hoping that the soft cushion might ease some of the pain in her head. It didn’t.

But it was going to be OK.

“Hey, you sure you’re all right?” Fashona asked. “They said you had a tough time.”

“Yeah.”

Fashona turned and looked at her. “You don’t sound like yourself.”

“Well, who do I sound like?” she said sharply.

“Now you sound like yourself,” said Fashona, turning his attention back to the controls.

She closed her eyes, hoping for sleep and praying that Fashona and his aircraft weren’t a dream.

14

“Who is Gordon Kensworth?” asked Rubens as he paced in front of the Art Room.

Sandy Chafetz looked up from her console a few feet away. “We’re working on it. The credit card account belongs to someone else completely, a Vefoures in France. It may be a phony — the account seems to have been dormant for a little over two months, and then was used to pay for the fare from France and rent the hotel room.”

“Why was he worth murdering? What else would he have given us?” asked Rubens. He meant the questions rhetorically, but Chafetz ventured an answer, suggesting that perhaps the people whose message system he’d stumbled onto resented it.

“That would go without saying. But it would have been easier to deal with him in France,” said Rubens.

There were other questions, many other questions — one of the Web sites had been compromised by French intelligence two or three months before and didn’t seem to have been used since.

So many possibilities, thought Rubens. He had to winnow them down.

Rubens leaned over and looked at the monitor where Dean’s and Karr’s positions were marked. The police had taken them to a station near Waterloo. A long string of charges were being prepared to punish them for beating the daylights out of the surveillance detail that had attempted to question Dean. So far, neither man had said anything.

The police hadn’t revealed why they were watching Waterloo Station, and the Art Room, so far moving very cautiously, hadn’t been able to figure it out. It could be something simple: pickpockets were on the upswing in the city, and the police had been taking plenty of heat over it.

Even if that was the case, eventually the police would connect Dean and Karr to the earlier murder investigation and have even more questions.

Should he blow their cover now and get it over with? Call up MI5 and say, “Help”?

Two of my men were in London to pick up a list of computers used by terrorists operating in France. We didn’t tell you because we thought you might tell the French, who would inadvertently tip off the terrorists.

Not particularly flattering for anyone, but it was the truth.

MI5 would feel obliged to get involved.

And the French?

Very complicated.

He could call the embassy again. Whether that would work now, though…

“Ms. Chafetz, tell me about that incident earlier, the one where Tommy Karr ran down the purse snatcher,” said Rubens.

“Marie actually handled that herself,” said the runner. “I didn’t come on duty until just afterward. This was a pretty routine assignment.”

“They got off the bus and ran after the thief,” said Telach, coming over. “Tommy vaulted over a wall and caught the guy as he was trying to go through the bag.”

“The ambassador’s daughter was unhurt?” asked Rubens.

“Yes.”

“But she was in danger.”

“Well, it was a purse snatching.”

“Get me the U.S. ambassador,”

“Not MI5?”

“Please, Marie.”

“With the time difference—” She stopped midsentence. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

“Fashona’s on final approach to Hokkaido!” said Rockman on the other side of the room. “‘They’re touching down in Hokkaido right now. She’s safe. Thank God.”

“I believe we can take some credit as well,” said Rubens drily. “Make sure the doctor meets the plane, as we discussed.”

15

Sometime during college, Alroy Clancy had found he could get by on four or five hours of sleep a night. The ability had come in handy at law school and then during his days as a plebe in a corporate law office; by the time he put law on the back burner to concentrate on real estate development at twenty-eight it seemed incomprehensible that anyone could sleep for longer than six hours.

It still seemed that way. The American ambassador to Great Britain did not have a “usual routine,” but midnight nearly always found him in his study catching up on international news. He generally worked until about 2:00 a.m., rising again at 6:00. One of the very few benefits of being a widower was not having to worry about disturbing his wife when he came to bed or rose.

Clancy began reading some of the mainstream press stories analyzing the President’s upcoming trip to Europe. As usual, the media had half the facts wrong and a tenth of the analysis right. The New York Times editorial writers were particularly perverse, claiming that France’s recent trend toward a greater alliance with Washington had made the world a more dangerous place. As he shook his head and flipped the page, his phone rang. At this hour, it was likely to be America, and so he picked up immediately.

“Mr. Rubens of the National Security Agency on the line for you, sir,” said the night operator. Clancy insisted on a live person answering his phone; the only time someone dialing the embassy got a machine was from 2:00 to 6:00 a.m.

Clancy punched the flashing light on the console next to his desk. “Mr. Rubens, good evening,” he said.

He expected that Rubens would be apologizing for the trouble earlier or at least calling to give him a heads-