Severe Clear

47

Holly finished her fried chicken and called Langley again, asking for a position on Hamish McCallister.

“Stand by,” the officer said. Then, a moment later, “Got it. Position is now Chelsea, right by the river.”

“Do you have a home address for him?” Holly asked.

A brief silence. “Negative, I have nothing. When I run the name a note comes up saying, ‘Contact the office of the director.’ That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Right,” Holly said. “Thanks.” She hung up and went to find Kate Lee.

Kate was standing by the pool, talking to Stone, and Holly gently pulled her aside. “Do you know where Hamish McCallister lives?”

“In London,” Kate replied, “when he’s not traveling.”

“Where in London?”

“He has a house on the Chelsea Embankment-very expensive neighborhood.”

“By the River Thames?”

“Good guess. What’s going on, Holly?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I’m just very concerned to hear that Hamish has a half brother whose name has come up in a search for a bomb factory in this country.”

“I agree, that’s not happy news. My recollection, though, is that Hamish and his brother are not close, having grown up in different families.”

“Is that what Hamish told you?”

“It’s what Dick Stone told me.”

“I called Hamish after you and I talked earlier. He told me that he was at Annabel’s, in London. A position track confirmed that.”

“Good.”

“But when I asked him about the whereabouts of his brother, Mohammad, he told me that Mo was sitting across the table from him, drinking champagne, and that Mo had spent the past month at the McCallister place on the Isle of Murk, having just arrived from there by train yesterday. That raises the question: if they’re not close and were raised by different families, why is Mo spending a month at a time on Murk with a family that is not his?”

Kate frowned. “I can’t come up with even a hypothetical answer to that question. Call London and have them investigate the whereabouts of Mo.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said. She went back to the study and called the CIA station at the American Embassy in London.

A woman answered. “Please state your business.”

“This is Assistant Director Holly Barker. What time is it in London?”

“Seven A.M.,” the woman replied.

“Is the station chief in his office at this hour?”

“He gets in at seven. I’ll connect you.” There was a click, then a pause.

“Good morning, Holly, this is Tom Riley.”

“Good morning, Tom. Scramble, please.”

There was some noise on the line, then, “We’re scrambled.”

“I’m calling from Los Angeles, where the director is traveling with her husband, and we need a position check on somebody, stat. His name is Mohammad Shazaz, known as Mo.” She spelled it for him. “He was alleged to have been at Annabel’s an hour or two ago, and for the month before that, visiting a prominent family called McCallister, on the Scottish isle of Murk.”

“Got it,” Riley said. “Do we know him?”

“We know his half brother, Hamish McCallister, who is our asset, reporting directly to the director’s office.”

“The director has an asset in the U.K. that’s reporting not to me but directly to her?”

“That is correct. It was approved by Dick Stone. I’d also like a position check on Mr. McCallister. His agency phone locator puts him currently at his house on the Chelsea Embankment, London. If that is correct, Mr. Shazaz may be staying with him.”

“We’ll start there,” Riley said, having apparently gotten over the fact that his boss had bypassed him in running an asset.

“Thank you. Are you reading my cell number?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“It’s eleven P.M. in L.A. Call me, no matter how late it is.”

“Will do.” Riley hung up.

There was a knock at the door, and Felicity Devonshire poked her head in. “Are you receiving company?”

“Sure,” Holly said, “come on in.” Felicity took a seat next to her on the sofa. “I think there’s some brandy over there,” Holly said, nodding toward a bookcase. “Can I get you one?”

“A small one, please,” Felicity replied.

Holly walked across the room and poked around a row of books until a panel came down, revealing a fully stocked bar. She returned to the sofa with a bottle of Remy Martin and two snifters. She set them on the table. “You decide what a small one is.”

Felicity poured herself a stiff cognac, and Holly followed suit. “There’s something in the air,” Felicity said. “Anything I can help with?”

Holly took a sip of her brandy. “Now that you mention it, yes. Can you call your service and see what, if anything, you have on a Mohammad Shazaz, called Mo?”

“Certainly,” Felicity said, reaching into her handbag for her phone. “Just give me a moment.” She pressed a button. “Architect here,” she said. “Director of records, please.” After issuing instructions, she hung up. “There. Shouldn’t take long.”

“We haven’t had much of a chance to talk,” Holly said.

“Busy, busy, both of us.”

“I was looking forward to a little R amp;R when the agreement was signed, but now I don’t know.”

“I suspect you’re talking about the discovery of the bomb earlier today, and about Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.”

Holly nodded. “My best guess is that one of them is connected to the bomb and that the other two are lurking somewhere nearby.”

“That seems a logical conclusion,” Felicity said. “But after today’s search of the property, it would seem that they haven’t got the other two on the property. Yet.”

“You think they’re going to try?”

“One would suppose.”

“Your people at GCHQ picked up some of the same e-mails as NSA did, didn’t they?”

“That is so.”

“You know what bothers me about that?”

“Tell me.”

“It’s too easy.”

Felicity took a sip of brandy. “How so?”

“I mean, if you were running three operatives in a foreign location, would you pick easily connected names for them? Say, Tom, Dick, and Harry?”

“Or Wynken, Blynken, and Nod? That would be rather poor tradecraft, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s so stupid, it would have to be deliberate,” Holly said.