Hot Pursuit

49

Millie’s phone rang as she was having breakfast in bed. “Yes?”

“Good morning,” Ian said. “We have a teleconference to attend with milady at ten. A car will collect you at nine-thirty.”

“All right. What’s the subject?”

“We’ll both find out together.” He hung up.

Millie hung up, too, and she picked up her iPhone to check her e-mail. There was an unheard voice mail message waiting. She pressed the button.

“Hi,” Quentin said. “We’ve got some new material, and it’s being forwarded to your friends across town. I expect you’ll be hearing from them about it. Miss you much.”

She erased the message. He must have called in the dead of night, and she had been too out to hear it. She finished her breakfast, then got into the shower.

She was delivered to the rear entrance of the building and a plainclothes guard escorted her up to Dame Felicity’s aerie. She was the first to arrive, being ten minutes early, and she used the opportunity to have a good look around. An entire wall of the study was taken up with history and biography, mostly of a foreign policy nature. On a small shelf under a window, she was surprised to find a leather-bound collection of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels.

Then, from somewhere behind the paneling she heard the muffled flushing of a toilet, and Dame Felicity emerged, immaculate, from behind a bookcase that was also a door. It was exactly ten AM. “Good morning, Millie. I’m sorry to be tardy. I hope you amused yourself.”

“I was admiring your James Bond collection,” Millie replied.

“Oh, yes, I’m a fan. I knew Fleming when I was a girl. He worked for my father, during the war. I was besotted with him.”

“I’ve read a lot about the war,” Millie said. “It is endlessly fascinating.”

“I’m rather surprised that you didn’t plump for the Agency. Did you ever consider it?”

“A campus recruiter got in touch with me once, and I had a meeting with him. I didn’t hear from him again. But then, I suppose the interview was more of an argument.”

“Their loss,” Dame Felicity said. “I would have recruited you after the first five minutes.”

“That is high praise.”

There was a rap on the door, and Ian Rattle stuck his head in. “They’re ready for us in the conference room,” he said.

It was just the three of them; she was clearly holding this operation close.

Ian picked up the phone. “Tell them to push the material,” he said, “and be sure you record it.”

A large screen descended from the ceiling, and a picture appeared. The voice over the action was that of Quentin Phillips. “This is Ali Mahmoud leaving his residence,” he said. “The sultan bought the house a decade or so ago and converted it to apartments for his higher-ranking diplomats.” At least three cameras followed the man down the street toward Dupont Circle and across to his embassy. He walked inside and closed the door behind him.

Then there was a cut to a shot high up in a large room. The door opened and Mahmoud entered and went to a desk. Millie was astonished that they had a camera in that room. As he sat down and picked up a phone, there was a cut to another angle, and a slow zoom to a medium close-up. “In my office, now,” Ali said into the phone, and they could hear both ends of the conversation.

They watched, then, as Mahmoud addressed his security chief, followed by the entrance of two men in coveralls. “We cut ahead here to an hour later, after the men left. Note that his laptop was stored in a large safe behind a bookcase,” Quentin’s voice said. The screen split, and Mahmoud’s computer screen filled half of it. There was a message in Arabic. “Translation: ‘The birds have arrived from the south and are in nesting.’”

Then Mahmoud was on his cell phone, and they could hear only his end of the conversation. When he was done, the screen went dark, then Quentin appeared, sitting at a desk in a room full of monitors.

“There was nothing interesting after that, except that we have noted that Mahmoud does absolutely no work as chargé d’affaires. He is pure intelligence, or perhaps terrorist. We interpret this conversation as a confirmation of the arrival of two agents from Dahai. Please note his concerns about them. He could very well be talking about the twins. Over to you and yours, Dame Felicity.”

“Special Agent Phillips, please allow me to say that what you have just shown us is nothing less than brilliant.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Please tell Assistant Director Epstein that I would like to speak with him, at his first opportunity, about sending some of my people over there to learn about your techniques.”

“I’ll pass that on, ma’am.”

“Tell me, do you know the location of the other man on the phone?”

“We believe the e-mail came from London,” Quentin replied.

“Was there any other indication in anything you collected about a London location?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then I suppose it’s over to us, is it not?”

“As you wish, ma’am. We’ll continue to monitor the subject, and I’ll report anything that might help on your end.”

“Thank you, I would be very grateful for that. I look forward to speaking with Assistant Director Epstein.” They said goodbye and hung up.

Millie felt a warm glow of pride at the quality and extent of what she had just seen.

“Absolutely astonishing,” Dame Felicity said.

“I agree,” Ian said. “I had no idea they could do that — and so quickly, too. Those two techs spent an hour in that room and found nothing.”

“Now,” Dame Felicity said, “Larry and Curly. What are the residential facilities for senior Dahai diplomats in London?”

“There are two,” Ian replied. “A large house in Regent’s Park, not far from the American ambassador’s residence, and two adjoining houses off Belgrave Square, quite near their embassy. Rather large facilities for such a small country.”

“Then start there. Also, learn if any individual senior people from the embassy have flats or houses either in London or in the Home Counties.”

“Wilco,” Ian replied. “Is there anything else, Dame Felicity?”

“No. Report back when you have something for me.”

Ian got up and left.

“Well,” Dame Felicity said, “you must be feeling very proud of your FBI.”

“I am as astonished as you are, ma’am, and of course I am proud of them. I’m acquainted with the agent you spoke with, and he is very impressive.”

“A Harvard man, I understand.”

“Yes, ma’am. We knew each other there. I was very pleased when I learned that he was in counterintelligence at the Bureau.”

“Something occurs to me,” Dame Felicity said. “It appears that two agents in London are being run by another in Washington. I think there must be a very important reason for that, and I fear it does not augur well for either of us.”

“The FBI has only just begun, Dame Felicity. We’ll be hearing more from them.”