Hot Pursuit

36

Will lee got back from his trip north, where he had spoken to the Oxford Union, and found Kate dressing for bed. He took her in his arms and held her for a moment. “You must be exhausted, after your day.”

“Oh, I am,” she said, leaning into him. “I think the worst of it was seeing the two agents who were wounded defending me. That’s the first time anybody has gone into harm’s way on my account.”

“There’ll be more before you’re done,” he said. “You have to get used to it.” He led her to the bed and tucked her in.

“How did your speech go?”

“Very well, though I started poorly. I was shaken by the attack this afternoon. I warmed up, though, and it got to be fun when they started asking questions.” He sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand, but she was already asleep.

Millie switched off the TV in her room next to Holly’s suite at the Connaught. CNN was wall-to-wall on the attack on the president, and she was sick of hearing about it. Holly’s name was mentioned in the reports but she, herself, had been referred to only as a “staffer,” and that was all right with her. Her cell phone came alive. “Hello?”

“It’s Quentin.”

“How are you?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thanks, but how about you? I assume you were the staffer the news keeps referring to.”

“I’m just fine, thanks. It was over very quickly, so I didn’t have time to get too scared.”

“The news said the car was engulfed in flames.”

“That’s how it looked from the inside,” she said. “Kate was marvelous, though, very cool and unaffected. The exciting part was when we drove through the middle of the park in Grosvenor Square, when the driver took evasive action.”

“You’re calling her Kate, now?”

“That’s what Holly calls her in private, so I guess I do, too. Do you have anything new on Harold what’s-his-name?”

“Harold Charles St. John Malvern,” Quentin said. “The St. John is pronounced ‘sinjin.’”

“Sounds almost Arabic, doesn’t it?”

“The San Francisco office has located a woman who went out with him when he was at Berkeley, and she’ll be going into the office tomorrow with her lawyer for an interview.”

“Her lawyer?”

“Everybody lawyers up these days — it’s TV. Pisses me off.”

“Now, now, it’s everyone’s right to have an attorney present when questioned.”

“Yeah, but it’s a pain in the ass, especially when someone like this woman isn’t suspected of anything.”

“Oh, I managed to get a good word about you into a conversation with Kate.”

“No kidding? That will be the first time she’s ever heard my name.”

“It won’t be the last,” she said. “You can tell your boss she had good things to say about him.”

“What did she say?”

“She said he was considered for attorney general, and that he turned down head of criminal investigations at Justice.”

“I didn’t know either of those things.”

“She also said turning it down was a smart move, though I’m not sure why.”

“Because he can make more of a difference at the Bureau,” Quentin said. “He can actually stop terrorist acts, instead of just prosecuting them after they’ve happened.”

“She said she would think of him again another time. That sounds good.”

“It sure does.”

“Quentin, how many people at the Bureau are working on finding Harry Sinjin?”

“Fewer than a dozen, in three offices. We’re holding this very tight, as you asked us to do. We don’t need this to get into the papers or on TV, because he’ll disappear into the Middle East somewhere.”

“Speaking of the Middle East, I have something else that might help you. Have you ever heard of a country called Dahai?”

“Vaguely.”

“It’s a sultanate south of Saudi Arabia, between Yemen and Oman.”

“Oh, right, the sultan is one of the world’s richest men, on a par with the sultan of Brunei.”

“Did I tell you about the twins? I can’t remember.”

“No.”

“In addition to Sinjin, there were mysterious twin boys who were sent to Eton under false names. They were educated there, and when they left, they were whisked away to Dahai on the sultan’s airplane.”

“I’m sorry, but that sounds preposterous.”

“Well, I heard a report from the head of MI6 about it today.”

“Directly from the head of MI6?”

“From Dame Felicity Devonshire herself. Holly and the president and I had lunch with her today. She’s got agents tracking the boys. Apparently, they kept to themselves at Eton — no participation in sports or clubs. Their bills were paid from an account at Devin’s Bank, and the funds were traced to a Sheik Hari Mahmoud, who is close to the sultan. And this was around the time that Sinjin was in California.”

“Verrrry interesting. Lev will be excited to learn about that. Anything else to report?”

“Not for the moment.”

“Tell me, are you naked?”

“Near enough.”

“One hand is holding the phone — where’s your other hand?”

She laughed aloud. “Wherever I want it to be. Good night, Quen.” She hung up, still laughing.