Severe Clear Page 8

  Stone cooked dinner for himself and Marla Rocker, whom he had been seeing for many weeks. After dinner, they repaired to his bed and did what they usually did after dinner.

  When they were finished, Marla said, “I’m sorry I can’t come to California with you for the hotel opening, but I’m beginning to get very busy with Peter’s play.”

  “I’m sorry, too, though I understand your reasons.”

  “In fact, when you get back, it’s going to be difficult for me to see much of you.”

  That set off a little ping in Stone’s frontal lobe; he read it as the first evidence of a dump to come. “Oh?”

  “I have a musical that will fall hot on the heels of Peter’s play, and an actor I’ve been close to will be starring.”

  So an old boyfriend was back in the picture. “I think I can see where this is headed,” Stone said.

  “It’s not you, Stone. You’re a lovely man, and I’ve enjoyed our time together. I hope . . .”

  “That we’ll always be friends? Of course.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” she said, sounding relieved. She put her feet on the floor and started reaching for clothes. “I can’t stay over—early start tomorrow, and I have to be fresh.”

  A moment later, after a quick hug and kiss, she was gone.

  Really gone, Stone thought. He looked at the bedside clock. Nine-thirty, and he wasn’t even sleepy. He reached for the TV remote control.

  —

  When Stone awoke, it was nearly seven A.M. and Morning Joe was on the TV. His phone rang. “Hello?”

  “Are you really awake?” an English-accented voice inquired.

  “I really am,” he replied. “Good morning, Felicity.” Felicity Devonshire was an old friend and lover who, after a long career in British intelligence, had risen to be the head of MI-6, the foreign arm of their intel services, code name: architect.

  “It appears that I will be attending the opening of your new hotel, The Arrington, in Bel-Air.”

  “Then I’m looking forward to seeing you. Business or pleasure?”

  “I’m anticipating a bit of both,” she said.

  “I’ll do what I can to help out with the pleasure side.”

  “I knew you would, Stone.”

  “What else is new in your life, Felicity?”

  “Everything is always new in my line of work, except when it’s old.”

  “I’m curious as to what business would bring you to The Arrington. Is there something I should know about? I am, after all, an investor and a director.”

  “Nothing I can mention at the moment,” she said. “Not on this line. Perhaps later.”

  “I’ll be all ears,” Stone replied.

  “And I’ll be tugging them.”

  Stone remembered on what occasions and in what position she liked to tug his ears. He laughed. “What day are you arriving?”

  “The same day as President Lee.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to come to New York a day or two earlier and lay over with me?”

  “If I can lay over with you, I shall certainly come earlier,” she said with a low chuckle.

  “I and my party are flying to L.A. on a Gulfstream 550, supplied by Strategic Services. You can travel with us, if you like.”

  “A fetching thought,” she said. “I’ll try and do that. I must go now. I’ll be in touch.” She hung up without further ado.

  Stone hung up, too, his spirits lifted by the sound of her voice. Then he remembered that Holly Barker would be in Bel-Air, too. This might get hairy, he thought.

  19

  Holly hung around London for another three days with-out hearing anything from Hamish McCallister. Finally, after having toured the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery and seeing the Degas exhibit at the Royal Academy of Art, and having gained two pounds on Connaught room service, she called the pilot who had flown her to London.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Holly Barker. Are you still on this side of the Atlantic?”

  “We are,” the man replied, “in Zurich. Are you ready to return to D.C.?”

  “I am.”

  “Will tomorrow morning be good enough?”

  “That will be fine.”

  “We’ll be ready to depart Biggin Hill at noon.”

  “I’ll be there. See you then.” She hung up and called her office. Grace answered her phone, since Holly hadn’t had time to choose her own secretary.

  “Ms. Barker’s office.”

  “It’s Holly, Grace.”

  “Good morning, Ms. Barker.”

  “You’re going to have to get used to calling me Holly, Grace, since I hardly know who Ms. Barker is.”

  “I’ll try, Ms. . . . Holly.”

  “I’m departing London at noon tomorrow, and I expect to be in the office between three and four.”

  “Would you like me to arrange ground transportation?”

  “No, my car is at Dulles. Has anything of importance come up?”

  “The director is anxious to hear your report.”

  “Tell her I haven’t heard anything yet. My friend is out of town.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Holly ended the call. Almost immediately, the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Encrypt,” a man’s voice said.

  Holly entered the code. “Encrypted.”

  “It’s your jet-setting colleague.” The transmission was scratchy. “Can you hear me all right?”

  “You break up now and then, but I can make you out.”

  “I have something for you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The Nod reference is to a nursery rhyme: ‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.’ Do you know it?”

  “I was a child, once,” Holly replied.

  Hamish chuckled. “My information is that there are three operatives somewhere on the West Coast of the United States. I couldn’t learn where or how long they’ve been there or what they are planning. Did you get that?”

  “I got it,” Holly said. “I don’t like it, but I got it. Is there any connection with the hotel?”

  “I think that’s a reasonable inference,” Hamish said, “but I couldn’t learn anything specific to support it. I’ll keep contacting people for another day or two, though.”

  “Where did you get this information?”

  “I can’t talk about my sources.”

  “Not who—where?”

  “I got that much in Lebanon, but I couldn’t trace it further back than that.”

  “All right; I’ll be in London until ten tomorrow, then I’m headed back to my office. You can contact me here or there.”

  “If I come up with anything else, I’ll be in touch,” Hamish said. “If I hear nothing, you won’t hear from me at all.”

  “Got it. Thanks for dinner. I look forward to working with you.”

  “Thank you for dinner,” Hamish said, “and same here. Good-bye.” He ended the call.

  —

  The G-450 landed at Dulles ahead of schedule, encountering only light headwinds. Holly walked into the director’s suite at three-thirty.

  “Welcome home,” Grace said. “The director asked that you see her as soon as you get in.”

  “Right now is good for me,” Holly said. She put her briefcase on her desk and knocked on the door between her office and the director’s.

  “Come in, Holly!” Kate Lee called.

  Holly came in and took the seat across the desk from her boss.

  “Good trip, I hope.”

  “I hope so, too,” Holly replied. “I saw Hamish as planned, the evening of my arrival.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Smart and charming. I asked him to find out what he could about The Arrington and Nod, and we agreed he shouldn’t do it on the phone, so he borrowed an airplane and took off the following morning for parts unknown to me. I heard nothing from him for three days, then he called late yesterday afternoon.”
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  “And what did he have to say?”

  “He said that, from what he was told by his sources, there are three al Qaeda operatives on the West Coast. Their code names are Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. He couldn’t find out where they are or how long they’ve been there or what they were there for.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. Although he wouldn’t reveal his sources, I asked him where he got the information, and he said in Lebanon.”

  “He said he went to Lebanon?”

  “He said over dinner that he wanted to speak to his sources face-to-face, so I took him to mean that he was or had been in Lebanon. The reception on the call was not great.”

  “Did he say he was still in Lebanon?”

  “No, but he said he would keep at it for another day or two, and that if he got anything more, he’d be in touch.”

  “Was the call from Hamish encrypted?”

  “Yes.”

  “Interesting. Well, I heard not half an hour ago that an NSA computer had picked up two more messages from California, one signed ‘Wynken,’ the other, ‘Blynken.’”

  “So I might as well have stayed at home.”

  “Your trip wasn’t for nothing. You got to know Hamish, and he got us confirmation on the three operatives. That’s worth a lot. It will make Scott Hipp at NSA very happy to know that his people’s work was confirmed.”

  “Who is Scott Hipp?”

  “A deputy director, in charge of electronic surveillance and cryptology. Very political. I expect to hear from the White House tonight that he has told them about Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

  “I expect the Secret Service will be interested in that information.”

  “Yes, they will,” Kate replied. “One thing troubles me, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Remember when Grace issued you your credentials and the two phones?”

  “Yes?”

  “Remember that we have constant GPS tracking on some of our phones?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hamish has one of those phones, one of those with the facility of encrypting, and the tracking on that phone indicates that he never left London.”

  Holly stared at her boss blankly.

  “Also, that Citation Mustang that he occasionally borrows from his friend, a London entrepreneur, has not been out of its hangar at Blackbushe Airport for the past ten days.”

  “So Hamish lied to me?”

  “Exactly,” Kate replied. “Now I want to see if he claims reimbursement for the airplane’s fuel usage. He can always say that he found another way to contact his sources and changed his mind about flying, but if he claims for the fuel, I’ll have his head.”

  “But what about the information he said he got from his sources? Can we trust that?”

  “Yes, because it has already been confirmed by the NSA—also, because Hamish has always been very careful not to overstate the quality of the information he passes to us, and he has never been wrong.”

  “Somehow, I feel had,” Holly said.

  “You haven’t been had, Hamish has just blown in your ear, that’s all. Now, don’t you have secretaries to interview?”

  Holly stood up. “Yes, ma’am.” She went to her office, where the first candidate awaited her.

  20

  Mike Freeman answered his suite door at The Arrington to find a messenger standing there with a package. He signed for it, tipped the man, and took it inside. He unwrapped a large cardboard tube and found a note attached to it.

  “Call me when you receive this,” it said, and it was signed by Scott Hipp.

  Mike opened the tube and shook out an enlarged photograph, a satellite view of the Los Angeles area. He flattened the photo and weighted the corners, then he called Hipp on his direct line.

  “Scott Hipp.”

  “It’s Mike Freeman, Scott. What have you sent me?”

  “First, a little preamble,” Hipp said. “Yesterday one of my people was going through data collected on an automated computer, and he found two more messages with the text ‘All is well. I am fine.’ One was signed ‘Wynken,’ the other, ‘Blynken.’”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What does the satshot you sent me have to do with them?”

  “Are you looking at the photo?”

  “I am.”

  “Then you’ll see three straight lines emanating from a point on the high ground, just above the Stone Canyon Reservoir, which is the cell tower that received and transmitted the e-mails.”

  “I see the lines.”

  “They’re fairly close together, you will observe. Through some technology I’m not allowed to tell you about, we’ve gone back to the computer record of the three e-mails, which were all sent from cell phones, and determined the radials from the tower on which each caller was located when the e-mails were sent. This is not definitive, of course, because we can’t determine the distance of the sender from the tower. In theory, they could be standing anywhere on those lines, out to infinity. In practice, they were probably all within five miles of the tower.”

  “I understand.”

  “As you will no doubt note, one of the lines—the message signed ‘Nod’—passes through the grounds of The Arrington, so Nod could have been on the property when it was sent. Of course, he could have been north or south of The Arrington, too, or it could simply be a coincidence, but you get my drift.”

  “I do.”

  “That’s all I’ve got for you,” Hipp said. “I thought you’d find it interesting.”

  “I find it fascinating, Scott. One more thing: do you have the dates on which the e-mails were sent?”

  “Nod transmitted a week ago yesterday, the twelfth, Wynken, the fourteenth, and Blynken, the fifteenth.”

  “Thank you again, Scott. Very much.”

  “Take care.” Hipp hung up.

  Mike stared at the map a little longer, then he got up and walked down the hill to the old Calder House, now the site of The Arrington’s executive offices. The building was nearly finished, now, and all the offices were occupied. He stopped at the reception desk.

  “Good afternoon,” he said. “My name is Michael Freeman, of Strategic Services. We’re supplying all the security personnel for the hotel.”

  “Yes, Mr. Freeman, I’ve seen you before.”

  “Who is in charge of hiring for the hotel?”

  “Well, each department head hires his own people: Food and Beverages hires the kitchen and restaurant staff, Domestic hires the maids, Landscaping, the outdoor workers, and so on.”

  “Is there a director of personnel, who presides over the entire hotel?”

  “No, sir. Each department has a budget and hiring conforms to that.”

  “Who’s in charge of the overall budget?”

  “Why, Carol, I suppose.”

  “And who is he?”

  “She. It’s Carol Pressler. Her office is just down the hall.” She pointed.

  “Thank you.” Mike continued down the hallway and found a door labeled “Comptroller.” He knocked, and a woman’s voice yelled, “Come in.” He opened the door to find an attractive woman in her forties seated at a computer, her desk stacked with printouts. “Mrs. Pressler?”

  “It’s Ms., and I’m Carol,” she said, holding out her hand. “You’re our security guy, aren’t you?”

  “Mike Freeman, of Strategic Services.”

  “Have a seat, Mike. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve just been told that there is no personnel director, as such, and that each department head is in charge of his own budget. Is that correct?”

  “It is. The philosophy is that each department head will be much better acquainted with the qualifications of hirees in his department than an overall director of personnel.”

  “But your department pays everybody?”

  “Correct.”

  “So you have a computer record of all employees?”

  “Correct.”


  “Can you tell from your records the date on which each was hired?”

  “I can, otherwise I wouldn’t know when to start paying them.”

  “I would be very grateful if you could give me a list of all the people hired on the twelfth, fourteenth, and fifteenth of this month.”

  “Overall, or by department?”

  “By department would be helpful.”

  “Can you give me a few minutes?” she asked.

  “Of course.” Mike rose to go.

  “Oh, not that many minutes. Just wait.”

  Mike sat down again.

  Carol Pressler turned to her computer and began typing. As she typed, her printer began to disgorge paper. A few minutes later, she got up, retrieved the paper from the printer, and handed it to Mike. “A total of a hundred and thirty-five workers were hired during those three days.”

  Mike took the stack of paper from her. “So many?”

  “We’ll have a little over one employee for every guest,” she said.

  “I mean, so many in just three days?”

  “Peak hiring time,” she said. “The hotel wants to hire people only shortly before they are to begin working. Interviewing has been going on for weeks, of course, but we want to hire personnel just in time to train them and put them to work, so the actual hiring is compressed into just a few days.”

  “I see,” Mike said. “And did the Secret Service review the records of each hiree?”

  “Yep. First time I’ve ever dealt with them, but given the importance of the guests, it’s understandable.”

  “And did the Secret Service decline to clear any of them?”

  “Only two, and they were Mexican-Americans who had counterfeit green cards. Very good counterfeits, too. Fooled me.”

  “And they were not hired?”

  “Nope. It’s the policy of the board to hire only legal workers. You should know that, since you’re on the board.”

  “Quite right.” Mike stood up. “Thank you, Carol,” he said.

  “You’re entirely welcome. I expect we’ll meet again.”

  “I hope so,” Mike said. He shook her hand and left the office.

  Walking back to his suite, he reflected that if Wynken, Blynken, and Nod were hired on those days—and that was only an assumption—and each had undergone the extensive background check by the Secret Service, then he was going to have a hell of a time figuring out who they were.