Sacred Stone

34

“I UNDERSTAND, MR. Prime Minister,” the president said. “I’ll have them notified immediately.”

He hung up the phone and buzzed his secretary. “Get me Langston Overholt over at the CIA.”

Then he sat back in his chair and waited for the call to be connected.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Overholt said when he came on the line.

“I just spoke to the prime minister,” the president said. “They were none too happy. It seems you and the Corporation have had them running all over their little isle on what the prime minister described as ‘goose chasing and near misses.’ The prime minister ordered the roads leading into two cities in Scotland closed, and now they’ve entered the van you told them contained the meteorite and found it empty. They want the Corporation to back off and let them handle the situation.”

“Sir,” Overholt said, “I believe that would be a grave mistake at this point. Cabrillo and his men have faced a tough situation. In the first place, they’ve stuck to the stolen meteorite like paste on paper. They have not recovered it yet, but they haven’t lost it either. In the second place, they have traced the movement to a London-bound train—Cabrillo is back in the air and preparing to intercept.”

“Turn your information over to MI5,” the president ordered, “and let them handle it.”

Overholt paused for a minute before speaking. “We still have the Ukrainian bomb loose. The Corporation has a team near London searching for it now—can they proceed with that?”

“The Ukrainians hired the Corporation for that job,” the president said, “not agencies of the United States government. I don’t see how it is within our power to order them off.”

“I asked MI5 to cooperate with them,” Overholt said. “In some ways, that gives the Corporation sanction.”

The president thought before answering. “The prime minister didn’t mention the stray nuke specifically,” he said slowly. “He was more concerned about the events in Scotland.”

“Yes, sir,” Overholt said.

“So tell them to continue the search,” the president said finally. “If they can recover the bomb, the threat of a dirty bomb using the meteorite is nullified.”

“I think I understand what you’re saying, Mr. President.”

“Tread lightly,” the president said, “and have them move quietly.”

“You have my word, Mr. President,” Overholt said as the phone went dead.

ADAMS FLEW ABOVE and to the rear of the number twenty-seven train. He was edging forward to drop Cabrillo on the roof when Hanley reached the men on the radio.

“We’ve been ordered off,” Hanley said. “The British are planning to intercept the train in a remote area along the coast near Middlesbrough.”

“We’re right there, Max,” Cabrillo argued, “another five minutes or so and I’ll be inside the train and searching for the meteorite.”

“It came directly from the president, Juan,” Hanley said. “We defy a presidential order and I have a feeling there won’t be any more work coming our way from the Oval Office. I’m sorry, but from a company standpoint it’s just not worth it right now.”

Adams heard the conversation and started slowing the Robinson. He stayed close to the tracks in case Cabrillo wanted to go ahead. Looking over at Cabrillo, he shrugged his shoulders.

“Back away, George,” Cabrillo said over the headset.

Adams moved the cyclic to the right and the helicopter moved away from the railroad tracks and over some farmland. Pulling back, Adams started climbing to reach a safe altitude.

“All right,” Cabrillo said wearily, “you’re right. I guess we should get your location so Adams can fly us back to the ship.”

“We’re passing offshore of Edinburgh and traveling south at full speed,” Hanley said, “but if I were you, I’d have Adams drop you in London. I have Meadows and Seng on their way there and they’ve turned up some interesting leads pertaining to the missing nuclear bomb.”

“We’re still a go on that?” Cabrillo asked.

“Until we’re told otherwise,” Hanley said.

“So the Corporation recovers the bomb,” Cabrillo said slowly, “and we let the Brits handle our meteorite. Seems backward.”

“Backward is all we have right now,” Hanley said.

ON THE RAIN-SOAKED deck of the ferry boat sailing from Goteborg, Sweden, to Newcastle upon Tyne, Roger Lassiter was speaking into a satellite telephone. Lassiter had worked for the CIA before being terminated a number of years before, after it had been discovered that vast amounts of funds had gone missing from accounts in the Philippines. The money was intended to be used for payoffs to the locals for information on Muslim terrorist groups operating in the southern provinces. Lassiter had lost the money gambling in a Hong Kong casino.

Once he had been fired, the CIA uncovered a few more facts. Lassiter was not above using unauthorized torture, misappropriating U.S. resources for his profit, or outright deceit and deception. Lassiter had operated in areas with little Langley control—and he had abused his privileges to the limits and beyond. There was also talk of him being a double agent for China, but once he had been fired, nothing was done.

Lassiter now resided in Switzerland, but he hired out to the highest bidder.

In Sweden, he’d stolen blueprints from a marine manufacturer who’d designed a revolutionary drive system. The party that had hired him for the theft was Malaysian. The drop was to take place in London.

“Yes,” Lassiter said, “I remember talking to you. You weren’t sure you’d need my services.”

The Hawker 800XP was just reaching New Jersey, where it would be refueled for the trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Hickman was making plans as he went.

“Turns out I do,” Hickman said.

“What’s the job?” Lassiter said as he glared at a tourist who walked past on the deck. The man headed back inside.

“Pick up a package and take it to London for me.”

“That’s a long ways out of my way,” Lassiter lied.

“Not according to the man I had following you in Sweden,” Hickman said. “He mentioned you got on board the ferry bound for the east coast of Britain quite a few hours ago. Was that someone else?”

Lassiter didn’t bother to answer. When two liars are speaking, brevity is critical.

“Where’s the package?” he asked.

“You’ll need to pick it up at the train station,” Hickman said. “It’ll be in a locker.”

“You want me to fly it down,” Lassiter asked, “or drive?”

“Drive,” Hickman said.

“Then it’s something that won’t stand up under an X-ray,” Lassiter said. “That raises the risk.”

“Fifty thousand,” Hickman said, “on delivery.”

“Half now,” Lassiter said, “and half upon completion.”

“One third, two thirds,” Hickman said. “I want to be sure you deliver on time.”

Lassiter considered this for a moment. “When do I get my first third?”

“I can wire it right now,” Hickman said. “What account?”

Lassiter rattled off an account in the Channel Islands. “I can’t verify the funds are there until morning. Can I trust you?”

“By the time you’re near London tomorrow morning,” Hickman said, “you can call your bank. You’ll know you’ve been paid before the delivery.”

“And how will I receive the last two thirds?”

“I’ll hand it to you,” Hickman said, “in person.”

“Leaving the sun and sand for the foggy British Isles,” Lassiter said. “It must be big.”

“You worry about your end,” Hickman said. “I’ll worry about mine.”

“WE INTERCEPTED A British communication,” Hickman told the man on the train. “They are stopping the train at Middlesbrough.”

“So they are onto the switch?” the man asked.

“They caught your partner entering Edinburgh,” Hickman said. “He must have given you up.”

The man considered this for a moment. “I doubt that,” he said, “at least not this soon. Someone else must be following us.”

Hickman didn’t tell the man about the break-in at his office. The less the man knew the better. So far he had lost his team on the Free Enterprise as well as one of his men inside Great Britain. Hickman was running out of assets he could use. And he’d need the man in Maidenhead.

“Whatever the case,” Hickman said, “I’ve taken care of the problem. You exit the train in Newcastle upon Tyne and place the package in a locker. Then proceed to the nearest restroom and place the locker key in the farthest toilet tank from the door. I have arranged for someone to pick up the package and take it the rest of the way.”

“What should I do then?” the man asked as he stared out the train window. The sign said Bedlington. He was thirty miles from his new stop.

“Make your way to this location in Maidenhead by rental car,” Hickman said, reading off an address, “and meet up with the rest of the team coming in from Calais.”

“Sounds great,” the man said.

“It will be,” Hickman agreed.

AT THE SAME time that Adams and Cabrillo were flying toward London, the Oregon was passing through the fifty-five-degree latitude, offshore of Newcastle upon Tyne. In his office, Michael Halpert was staring at a stack of documents he’d printed from the files Truitt had sent. Halpert was underlining sentences with a yellow highlighter when one of the computers in his office beeped and the printer started.

Halpert waited until the document was finished, then removed it and read.

The pictures Truitt had stolen had been matched on a U.S. military database. The face belonged to one Christopher Hunt of Beverly Hills, California. Hunt had been a captain in the U.S. Army until he had been killed in Afghanistan. Why did Halifax Hickman have a photograph of a dead soldier in his office? What possible tie could it have to the theft of the meteorite?

Halpert decided to dig deeper before contacting Hanley.

NEBILE LABABITI STARED at the bomb, bathed in the light from a flashlight, with glee. It was sitting on the floor in a ground-floor office/showroom on the Strand that was located below Lababiti’s apartment. The office had been vacant for the last few months, and Lababiti had jimmied the lock last week then changed it so he had the only key. As long as no one wanted to show the office in the next few days, he was home free.

The showroom had an overhead garage door for deliveries. The space was perfect for loading the bomb into a vehicle for the run down to the park. Out of sight, but with a fast exit. It was all coming together, he thought.

Turning off the flashlight, he slipped out the door and walked across the street to a pub near the Savoy Hotel. Then he ordered a pint and dreamed of death and destruction.