Severe Clear

51

Stone and Dino were sitting with Mike Freeman, watching the presidents’ statements, when Steve Rifkin came in, mopping his brow.

“Everything all right?” Mike asked.

“So far, so good. I had to get out of that theater. Standing around waiting for something terrible to happen was just too much.”

“Relax,” Mike said. “Those two bombs are not on the premises. I think we’ve satisfied ourselves of that. How’s it going down at the front gate?”

“Nobody was supposed to arrive before noon, but they’re lined up, waiting to have themselves and their vehicles searched. Pretty soon, they’re going to start blowing their horns. What’s the president saying?”

“This is good stuff,” Stone said. “The Mexicans have agreed to create a new border guard unit in their army that will patrol their side of the fence, and that will mean a doubling of the number of people looking for illegal crossings.”

“Very good,” Steve said.

Holly Barker came into the room. “How’s it going?” she asked.

Stone brought her up to date.

“May I use the study for a moment?” she asked.

“Help yourself.”

Holly went into the study, called the Agency’s London station, got Tom Riley on the line, and scrambled. “Anything new?” she asked.

“We got a guy into the McCallister house posing as a gas worker looking for a leak in the neighborhood, but they wouldn’t allow him above the ground floor.”

“Swell, so we still don’t know if Hamish and Mo are in the house?”

“Our man did see the cook put a breakfast tray in the dumbwaiter and send it up.”

“A tray for one or two?”

“He thinks for one.”

“So one of them isn’t in the house?”

“Or one of them doesn’t eat breakfast. Take your pick.”

“Tom, do a search of everything for the name Algernon.” She spelled it for him.

“In what context?”

“In any context at all. We’ve got an al Qaeda operative calling himself Algernon.”

“Okay.”

“Call me when you’ve got something.” She hung up and went back into the living room.

“The president has finished, and now Vargas is having his say,” Stone said. “You look a little stressed. How come?”

Holly turned and walked out onto the patio without replying. Stone got up and followed her.

“What’s going on, Holly?”

“I’m missing something, that’s what’s going on,” she said.

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you understand that we’re under siege here in this hotel? There are at least two bombers out there, determined to do their worst, and nothing we’ve been able to do about finding them has worked.”

“You sound like Steve Rifkin,” Stone said. “Leave it to the Secret Service, they’re the experts here, not you.”

“I’ve got a contact in London who I think is lying to me, but I can’t prove it.”

“I should think you’d get lied to a lot, in your business,” Stone said.

“I feel out of my depth,” Holly said. “I’m accustomed to playing offense, not defense.”

“I wish I could help,” Stone said. “Why don’t you talk with Felicity? Maybe she can help.”

“We had a long chat last evening,” Holly said, “and she’s working her side of the pond.”

“Have you done everything you can do?”

“I’ve done everything I can think of, which may not be the same thing.” Her phone rang. “Excuse me,” she said, and walked away a few yards.

“It’s Tom. Scramble.”

Holly scrambled. “Shoot.”

“We haven’t got much: There’s a hotel in South London by that name, could be a drop. There’s Algernon Moncrieff, a character in The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde, and there’s a short story and then a novel called Flowers for Algernon, made into a movie called Charly that starred Cliff Robertson. He got an Academy Award for his performance. That’s it. Nobody here can think of anything in either work that would relate to al Qaeda or spying or anything else.”

“Okay, Tom.”

“We’ll keep at it.”

“Sure, call me.” Holly hung up and went back to where Stone had sat down.

“Anything new?”

“Absolutely nothing.”