Blowback

FIFTY-FOUR

It took the man sitting in the car outside the Washington Plaza Hotel three rings before he found his ear bud, plugged it in, and answered his cellular phone. Very few people had this number. When he heard a woman’s voice say that she was calling from “The Flower Patch,” he knew right away who was behind the call.

“We have your order ready,” said Jillian, “but our driver is out sick, so we were wondering if you could arrange to pick up the roses yourself.”

Lawlor was all too familiar with the code. Harvath had a person, or persons, who needed to be brought in to protective custody right away. “Can you remind me again what color I ordered?” he asked. “Pink or red?” — meaning were the person or persons foreign or domestic.

“Pink.”

Foreign.

“It might take me a while to get there,” replied Lawlor.

“Well, we’re going to be closing early, so you’ll have to hurry.”

“Understood. I’m sorry to be so forgetful, but has the bill already been posted to my account?”

“Not yet,” said Jillian.

Lawlor knew that meant that Harvath had not yet posted the details for him on their clandestine electronic bulletin board. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for it.”

“Good. We’ll get it to you as soon as we can.”

“In the meantime,” said Lawlor as he tried to figure out how to phrase the next piece of information in such a way that it would make sense to Harvath, but not to anyone else who might be listening in on their call, “the special blue roses I asked you to look for overseas are rumored to be available domestically now.”

Jillian looked at Harvath, who suddenly had a very concerned look on his face. Blue roses was how they referred to their current assignments. Lawlor was talking about the illness. Somehow, it had made its way to the United States.

“The roses haven’t been put on sale yet,” Gary continued, “but I’d sure like as much information as you can provide me. Rumor has it that they’ll be on the market in just a few days.”

“We’ll get right on it,” Jillian said. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, one last thing. I’ve gotten several calls that Wal-Mart has gotten into the blue roses business as well. You might want to check into it and see what they know.”

With that, Lawlor punched the end button on his cell phone, set aside the pad of paper he had been taking notes on, and looked up just in time to see Helen Remington Carmichael’s car emerge from the hotel’s underground parking structure.