Severe Clear

48

Holly and Felicity had nearly finished their cognac when Felicity’s phone rang. “Yes?” She listened intently. “You’ve checked every database? Thank you.” She hung up and turned to Holly. “We don’t know him.”

Holly sighed. “How has this person, who we know exists, eluded both our services’ attention until the past couple of weeks?”

“Holly, there are zillions of people on earth that we have no record of. Maybe in the next century or two we’ll know everything about everybody, but not yet.”

Holly’s phone rang. “Barker.”

“It’s Tom Riley. Scramble.” They both scrambled.

“Okay, shoot,” Holly said, putting her phone on speaker so Felicity could hear.

“A Bentley Mulsanne registered to Hamish McCallister is parked outside a house on the Chelsea Embankment, with a neighborhood parking permit stuck to the windshield, also registered to McCallister. A housemaid entered and a couple of tradespeople have been seen to come and go. We sent two operatives to the front door, posing as Mormon missionaries. The door was answered by a uniformed butler who said that Mr. McCallister was not at home, which in butlerese means he might be there but isn’t receiving callers. Our ‘missionaries’ tried to engage the butler further, but he closed the door in their faces.”

“So we don’t know who’s in the house, besides a butler and a housemaid?”

“We called the house, which has an unlisted number, posing as alumni relations from Christchurch College, Oxford, and asked for Hamish. The butler said he was not at home. That’s it. If we want to know, fast, who’s in the house, nothing short of phoning in a false fire alarm is available, and that might get more of Mr. McCallister’s attention than we want.”

“Anything on the presence of Mo on the Isle of Murk?”

“One of our people phoned the post office on the isle, posing as a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs official, and inquired about mail deliveries to the house. The postmistress said that the post delivered had seemed routine for the past month, nothing addressed to a Shazaz. The most interesting delivery to the house was a package from Paxton amp; Whitfield, a well-known London cheese shop, marked ‘Perishables enclosed. Kindly deliver without delay.’ The evidence will probably have been consumed by now.”

“So we don’t know if Mo was there or if he wasn’t?”

“Correct.”

“Did you find out anything at all about the man?”

“A birth certificate, records of graduation from Eton and Oxford, a British driving license, no photograph. His address is the same as his brother’s, no employer stated on his tax returns, so he must have a private income. We haven’t been able to locate a photograph since he left Eton-none at Oxford-and he’s never made the papers or been arrested, except for two speeding tickets on the M4 motorway, four and seven years ago, both promptly paid. He’s a member of Annabel’s, Mark’s Club, Harry’s Bar, and George, all founded by Mark Burley, deceased, now owned by his heirs. He has charge accounts at Harrods, Fortnum amp; Mason, Kilgour, French amp; Stanbury tailors, Turnbull amp; Asser shirtmakers, and John Lobb bootmakers. Clean credit record. All this adds up to an overprivileged upper-class twit, except that his father was Syrian and his mother Egyptian, both deceased.”

“Good job, Tom, thank you. Please stay on locating Mo and call with any news.”

“Will do.” He hung up.

Holly pressed the end button. “I’m surprised your people didn’t have any of that,” she said to Felicity.

“You asked what we had, not what we could find out,” Felicity replied archly. “Still, your people did very well in the course of a single brandy.”

“They did, didn’t they? I’m pleased.”

“You should be-that would have taken my lot half a day.”

“Algernon,” Holly said.

“What?”

“The signer of the e-mails. He’s running Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and he doesn’t care if we find them, as long as it takes our eye off the ball-off him, Algernon.”

“In that case, you’re unlikely to find the trio alive.”

“Are you thinking suicide bombs?”

Felicity shook her head. “The only suiciders al Qaeda has used in the States are the 9/11 hijackers. I think it’s more likely that Algernon will erase the three himself when he’s done with them. If caught, they might identify him.”

“It bothers me that we haven’t found out who brought in the bomb found in the wine storage room.”

“I expect the Secret Service are working that very hard. They’ll be interviewing the restaurant and kitchen staff.”

“I suppose it could have been brought onto the premises by somebody delivering wine or booze,” Holly said. “Which will make him harder to find.”

“I don’t know,” Felicity said, “I think it might more likely be an inside person, who brought the item in and hid it. Otherwise, some worker might have stumbled on it while unpacking bottles.”

At that moment, Special Agent Steve Rifkin was sitting in The Arrington’s main restaurant with two of his agents and a list of food and beverage staff. “And you’ve interviewed all of these?” he asked, holding up the list.

“Every one,” an agent replied.

“How did you classify them?”

“We didn’t. We just talked to everyone, in alphabetical order.”

“Let’s take another look at this,” Rifkin said. “I think that whoever brought the device in is more likely to be in a supervisory position, because he knew where to put the bomb where it wouldn’t be found before he needed it.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“All right, then,” Rifkin said, handing the man back his list, “eliminate all the waiters, bartenders, busboys, dishwashers, and cooks from your list, and let’s see who we have left.”

The two men divided the list between them and went to work, crossing out names. After a few minutes, they handed back the list to Rifkin. “We’re down to a dozen,” one of them said.

“Now, let’s eliminate everyone who does not deal directly with wines and spirits.”

That took another minute. “In this building, three,” he said. “The restaurant manager, the headwaiter, and the chief bartender, who oversees all the bars.”

“Read me a profile of each of them,” Rifkin said.

“All right,” an agent said, consulting his notes. “Restaurant manager, Enzo Pagani, born Naples, fifty-six years ago, came to New York at eighteen, worked his way up from busboy to maitre d’ over twenty-odd years, worked two years in that position at a Las Vegas casino, promoted to restaurant manager, then hired out of there by The Arrington.”

“Did he apply?”

The agent looked at his notes. “No, they approached him.”

“He’s not our guy,” Rifkin said. “How about the headwaiter?”

“Pierre du Bois, born Marseilles, forty-nine years ago, came to U.S. as a child, to New Orleans, long career in restaurants there, then hired from Commander’s Palace by The Arrington.”

“Not our guy,” Rifkin said. “Who is the other one?”

“Chief bartender, Michael Gennaro. Born U.S. of Italian parents thirty-eight years ago, worked in his family’s restaurant in Studio City since childhood, doing pretty much everything. Applied to the Beverly Hills Hotel eight years ago for a bartender’s job, then came to The Arrington, answered an ad in a restaurant trade magazine for a bartender’s job, got hired as chief bartender.”

“That’s interesting,” Rifkin said, “that he got hired for a bigger job than they advertised for. I don’t think he’s our guy, either, but find out more about him fast. Start with the guy who hired him. And find out what his religion is.”

“How are we going to do that?” an agent asked. “They can’t ask for that information on an employment application.”

“Ask Michael Gennaro,” Rifkin said.

The two agents got up and left the room. Rifkin looked at his watch; he was hungry. He got up and went in search of food.