Stealth

44

The following morning Stone received a package from Lance Cabot that contained some personalized CIA stationery, a pair of operations manuals, and a kind of employees’ handbook for Agency personnel. He spent a good part of the day reading them and found them enlightening.

That afternoon — early morning in the States — Stone received a phone call from Lance.

“Scramble,” Lance said.

“Hang on.” It took him a moment to hit the right buttons. “Scrambled,” he said.

“Henceforth, all our conversations will be scrambled,” Lance said.

“All right.”

“Did you get the reading materials I sent you?”

“Yes, and I have already read them.”

“Good man,” Lance said. “Since you haven’t spent three or four months at the Farm, you’ll need to fill in a few gaps in your knowledge of how we work.”

“It seems to me that my knowledge is mostly gaps,” Stone replied.

“We can live with that. Occasionally, we recruit someone who has an actual life that can’t be interrupted for long periods, so we make do.”

“I understand, and I’ll try to keep up.”

“Stone, I called because there has been a flurry of activity about you on a number of Internet search engines that, normally, would ignore your existence.”

“So, word is getting around about our arrangement?”

“We’ve factored that into our analysis, and we believe that there is more than that going on.”

“What do you believe is going on?”

“We’ve had flurries like this when the Russians have taken an interest in a particular person, especially one connected with us. We keep a watch on the search engines they commonly use. Have you had any recent contact with Russians, or with people you suspect might be associated with their intelligence agencies?”

“No, but at dinner last night with Dame Felicity, her new deputy and his wife — Terrence and Dorothy Maldwin — were there, and the conversation turned to the man Maldwin is replacing.”

“I know them both,” Lance said, “and Terry is a good choice for her deputy. Why did Fife-Simpson’s name arise?”

“Apparently, Terry’s principal assignment at the moment is to keep tabs on the brigadier. They’ve been surveilling him since his, ah, retirement — with mixed results.”

“‘Mixed’ how?”

“They lost him a couple of times — once for three days and once for several hours, which coincided with the killing of a British vice-admiral with whom Fife-Simpson has had a rocky relationship over the years.”

“That would be Simon Garr.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me, does Fife-Simpson have anyone new in his life? A woman, perhaps?”

“Funny you should mention that. Yes.”

“How did he meet her?”

“In a pub, and apparently they hit it off immediately. They’ve taken a new flat together.”

“Tell me about her — hang on, I want to record this. Go.”

“Jennifer Sands, age thirty-nine, Oxford graduate with a first in languages.”

“Russian one of them, perhaps?”

“Right. She’s attractive and has considerable personal wealth from her father. Oh, and she was once a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain but resigned about a year ago.”

“Clearly, she’s dirty,” Lance said. “Do they know if she — or Fife-Simpson — has had any contact with anyone at the Russian embassy?”

“That wasn’t mentioned last night.”

“Where is this new flat where they’re shacking up?”

“In Eaton Place.”

“Ah, that’s revealing,” Lance said.

“How so?”

“One of London’s finest addresses. That means Fife-Simpson is very important to them. Of course, if Ms. Sands is wealthy, she may be paying. Do you have the exact address?”

“No, but they did say it was a top-floor flat.”

“Good.”

“Why good?”

“Because it makes surveillance easier for us. We’re going to have to take a close look at the woman, then set up our own team on old Roger. We’ll have to stand back a bit, since Felicity already has people on him.”

“I’d be interested in how you would do that,” Stone said.

“We’ll rent a nearby flat, far enough away so that our people aren’t bumping into Felicity’s people, and we’ll use electronic and telescopic methods. We’ll let them follow Fife-Simpson and the woman when they go out, then we’ll follow Felicity’s people.”

“Felicity was annoyed with the lapses in their surveillance of him and ordered Terry to beef up his team.”

“As she would, of course. Those two lapses could account for a multitude of sins, including the murder of Simon Garr. The three-day period sounds like an indoctrination to me. You say they lost contact in south London?”

“Yes.”

“There are a couple of airports down there. They could have transported him somewhere. We’ll get to work on aircraft registration numbers and flight plans filed. It occurs to me, too, that that period could coincide with the increased activity on researching you. Do you think Fife-Simpson could have brought up your name?”

“I’ve no idea. He knows my name, of course.”

“They would have milked him dry for names. So it wouldn’t surprise me that yours would come up, especially since Fife-Simpson knows you to be a friend of Felicity’s.”

“She brought him to dinner at my house,” Stone said.

“Then they certainly would have extracted that event from him, and your name as well.”

“Do you want me to do anything at this end?”

“No, you’re not trained for this sort of thing. I would like to know if anything unusual happens that you could attribute to Fife-Simpson: if you should bump into him on the street in London or get a phone call from him, for instance. If his name comes up in a conversation with someone outside of Felicity’s circle.”

“That’s a very wide circle,” Stone said.

“Granted. You’ve opened a new channel of investigation for us, Stone, and I’m grateful. This is the sort of thing that made me want to bring you inside.”

“Well, I’m just sort of lying here,” Stone said, “not exactly doing anything.”

“Let me know if someone pokes you in the ribs,” Lance said. “Bye-bye.” He hung up.

Stone thought his new status at the Agency was already making his life more interesting.