Twice a Spy_ A Novel - Keith Thomson [22]
“She was in deep cover on an intelligence gathering op in Martinique,” Eskridge said. “Fielding was her target. Like the rest of the world, the NSA bought into his bad-guy cover story. The problem with Miss Alice Rutherford was, when push came to shove, she couldn’t be convinced that Fielding was actually on our side, not even by the man upstairs.” He pointed to the ceiling, signifying the director, whose office was on the seventh floor. “So now we’re watching her gunning down Fielding and, at least in her mind, coming to the rescue of …”
On the display, Alice climbed through the cavity she’d created in the glass. Eskridge tapped at the scene, fast-forwarding through about two minutes of footage of empty vestibule. Then Alice reappeared from an alley next to the office building, with a young man and an older one in tow.
“Drummond and Rotten Apple Clark?” Stanley asked.
“None other.” Eskridge paused to watch the threesome disappear from the frame. “And that’s the last anyone’s seen of them: Alice has gone totally off the reservation.”
“Any idea why?”
“She maintained that Fielding was off the reservation, that he and the Cavalry zapped Burt Hattemer in order to get the presidential finding against the Clarks. She also insisted that the Cavalry did this to keep a lid on their own misdoings. Under Fielding’s direction, the Cavalry ‘went Lord of the Flies,’ as she put it—and to some extent, she’s right. One problem with her murder theory, though, is the utter lack of any evidence. Three days ago she sent a Hushmail from points unknown to an inspector general at NSA requesting an investigation. NSA wrote her back saying basically, ‘Great, tell us more,’ but she never responded. It now appears as though she was just trying to smoke screen her real activity, which is putting one of Drummond’s old ADMs up for sale, possibly to the United Liberation Front of the Punjab, an Islamic separatist group who are violent psychopaths when they’re on their best behavior. According to our man Bellinger, their sugar daddy had his checkbook out and was waiting near Fielding’s place in Martinique the day Fielding was killed. Unfortunately, everyone who knew the device’s location died with Fielding. Everyone except Drummond Clark, that is. So if Bellinger is right about the new weapons deal, Alice and her companions stand to clear several hundred million clams. Which means one of those bombs could blow in the heart of New York or DC. And worse still …”
“The Perriman Appliances op would be blown?”
“Exactly.” Eskridge stared over the screen, his laid-back manner hardening. “If you can find them, and if we can learn what they’ve told to whom, great. But first and foremost, we need to stop them.”
The assignment was far more dangerous than Stanley had imagined. He wanted it anyway. He’d wanted an assignment like this since he first applied to the CIA.
Stanley sat in a temporary Europe division office with one of the unit’s signature Union Jack–blue doors but otherwise as charismatic as a budget motel room minus the requisite nature print. His dream job commenced with gumshoe work about as rudimentary as it gets.
He spent much of the morning investigating PM00543MH4/7, the Science and Technology search system’s designation for one of the 29,655 groups of travelers matching his criteria. This group consisted of sixty-three-year-old investor Duncan Calloway, who five nights ago had taken his Learjet 45XR from Palm Beach to Paris, along with two of his junior associates—one male, one female, both purportedly twenty-eight. Their excursion employed no small amount of subterfuge, including an 0100 departure and a layover at New York’s Kennedy Airport for twenty minutes, though such a stop was unnecessary for refueling.
The subterfuge, Stanley learned, was intended to throw off a rival investment firm that had hired a Palm Beach–based private espionage outfit to track Calloway