Hot Pursuit

40

Millie got into her car, an anonymous-looking British Ford, and introduced herself to the driver.

“I’m Denny,” the man said.

“Are you armed, Denny?”

“I have a Glock on my belt and an Uzi in the center console and five magazines for each.” He had, maybe, a Cockney accent.

“Then I am reassured.”

“And there’s a turbocharged V8 under the bonnet and a racing suspension.”

“Just what we need to get to Harrods.”

Denny drove away in a sedate manner.

Her cell rang, and she looked at her watch. Quentin, maybe. She got a little tingle thinking about him. “Hello?”

“My name is Ian Rattle,” a very British voice said. “Do you recall it being mentioned to you?”

“I do,” Millie replied. “How do you do?”

“I do better after a good lunch. Will you join me?”

“Where and when?”

“Where are you now?”

“We’ve just left the embassy.”

“Then meet me at the Grenadier, a pub in Wilton Row, behind Wilton Crescent. Your driver will probably know it. Fifteen minutes?”

“Sounds good.”

“Right.” He hung up.

“Denny, do you know a pub called the Grenadier?”

“In Wilton Row? Of course.”

“There, then. Harrods later.”

“Righto.”

Ten minutes later they came to a barrier with a guardhouse. Denny had a word with the uniformed security guard there, and the barrier rose. They drove into a charming mews and stopped at the end, before the Grenadier.

“I’ll be nearby,” Denny said, handing her a card. “Ring me when you’re ready.”

She climbed the steps to the pub and entered a bar, where a dozen or so well-dressed people and a few men in working clothes were having a pint. She looked up to see a tall, slender man beckoning to her from the adjacent dining room, and she joined him.

He was well-tailored, well-barbered, and looked well-heeled. His suit fit, and his shirt and tie were a little offbeat. “I’m Ian,” he said, “and you’re Millie. Take a pew.” He sat her down at a table with her back to the door, and he took the gunfighter’s seat in the corner.

“Now,” he said, “drink?”

“I’ll have a glass with lunch.” She picked up a menu. “The gammon steak, please, and chips.”

A waitress appeared, and he ordered for both of them, including a bottle of wine. When she was gone he handed Millie a card. “Whenever you need anything from our shop, call me at this number. I can get through faster to anybody than you can going through the switchboard. Half the people who ring that number are crackpots with conspiracy theories.” He had a very upper-class drawl, probably an Oxbridge man, she reckoned.

“I know little about you,” he said. “Mind a few pointed questions?”

“Not at all. I expect I’ll have a few for you, too.”

“Fair enough. Give me a sixty-second bio, please.”

“Born Washington, Connecticut, small village. Educated in the Montessori school there, followed by Harvard, undergrad and law, followed by White House staff.”

“Pretty short.”

“I’m pretty young. You?”

“I’m forty. Born Cowes, village on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast from Southampton. Educated Eton, Cambridge. Royal Marines intelligence, then MI6. How long have you been at the White House?”

“Not too long.”

“Have you had any intelligence experience?”

“Not until recently.”

“Do you know anybody in intelligence?”

“My boss was CIA station chief in New York before becoming national security adviser to the president. Her boss was the director of Central Intelligence.”

“Do you know Lance Cabot?”

“Slightly.”

“Have you ever heard of someone called Stone Barrington?”

That stopped her. “Yes, I have.”

“Ever met him?”

“Not yet. How did that name pop into your head?”

“It popped into my computer this morning,” Ian said. “He’s on a kind of watch list — not the pejorative sort, it’s a bit of a compliment, really. His name just pops up when he enters the country, and when it happens, I let my chief know.”

“Mr. Barrington and your chief are acquainted, I believe, and he’s close to my boss and our president, as well.”

“I reckoned something like that.”

“So he’s in the country?”

“Apparently so, though he did not clear immigration at any port or airport. A friend of ours, retired officer, reported him at quite an elegant country hotel in Devon called Gidleigh Park. Heard of it?”

“No, I’ve not been to Devon.”

“Quite posh, I believe. Can you fill me in on Mr. Barrington?”

“He’s a New York attorney with a very prestigious firm, Woodman & Weld. A widower — wife murdered by a former lover a few years back. One son, now a Hollywood producer and director. The dead wife was previously married to the film star Vance Calder, and she left a good deal of Calder’s money to Mr. Barrington when she died. That’s about it. Oh, when Katharine Lee was preparing to run for president, a group of twenty-one people contributed a million dollars each to get her started. Mr. Barrington was one of them.”

Ian winced slightly. “So he is important, then.” It wasn’t a question.

“Important to your boss and mine,” she replied.

“Now I’m left with wondering how the hell he got into the country. Any ideas on that?”

“I’ll see what I can find out,” she said.

Their lunch arrived, and Ian tasted the wine. “We’ll drink it,” he said to the waitress.

They ate in silence for a little while. Finally Millie broke it. “Anything new on Larry and Curly?”

He looked at her askance. “Are we talking about the Three Stooges?”

“The twins,” she replied. “Moe is the one we’re tracking in the States.”

“Ah, the twins.”

“Did you know them at Eton?”

“I was at Oxford when they were at Eton.”

“Does your service have any assets in Dahai who could be of help?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that. Suffice it to say that they are scratching around the edges of the sultan’s court for word of the boys. Optimism is high.”

“It would seem that the boys were trained to be British, and that Moe, as we call him, was trained to be American.”

“Yes, it would seem so. Worrying, isn’t it? It’s so much easier to spot them when they wear turbans and costumes and speak in tongues.”

“Isn’t it? Easier, too, when they have names and photographs and fingerprints in our databases.”

“That would be convenient, yes. But someone has gone to a great deal of trouble and expense over a period of many years to hide those things from us, and I find it very annoying. Perhaps you and I and your FBI friend can do something about that.”

“It’s why I’m here,” Millie said. Her cell phone rang. “Hello?”

“It’s Quentin. We have a photograph of Moe.”