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  “Must be nice to be able to get a wiretap that easy,” Alex said.

  “It was not exactly easy,” Cooper said. “But so far, nothing of importance has been forthcoming. And essentially, that is the situation as we now know it.”

  “Sounds like most of the eggs are in the basket to me. We need to take a little run out there and have a chat with some folks,” Fernandez said.

  Cooper stared at the holoproj image, then down at the table. She looked uncomfortable, a thing that didn’t bother Toni much. Cooper said, “Well, yes, that would be the logical next step.”

  “But . . . ?” Howard said.

  “This is a bit awkward,” she said. “We can’t just pop out and do that.”

  “Why not?” Toni asked. “We have a suspect in the computer crime that has rattled half the planet, and we know where he is. I can’t believe you don’t want to have a few words with him. And with the guy who he works for, too.”

  Toni saw Julio and John Howard nod in agreement, and Alex also looked ready to hear her answer.

  Cooper said, “This is true. However, things aren’t done that way here. What if you were in the States and you suddenly had to question a billionaire who was also a powerful political figure? A senator or even the President? You couldn’t just knock on his door and demand to come in, could you?”

  “No,” Alex said. “But if we had enough reason to suspect he was involved in a major crime, in which hundreds of people were killed as a result of something he did or had done, we could get a judge to issue a search or an arrest warrant. We’ve had our President testify when he didn’t want to. Even impeached.”

  “After weeks of consultation with his lawyers,” Cooper said. “And the impeachment was a wrist slap—he wasn’t tried and found guilty, was he?”

  “The effort was made,” Alex said. “No man is above the law.”

  “Men are not above the law here, either, Alex, but this is a small country, and despite our attempts to bring it into the twenty-first century, still very caste-conscious. Lord Goswell is at the acme of power here. He went to school with the senior members of the House of Lords. He knows the blue blood wealthy, he knows the most powerful barristers and solicitors, and he knows the judges, the high police officials. Every couple of weeks he has tea with the head of the Conservative government. He can get more done with a wave of his hand than Parliament can do in a week. He plays bridge with the king. Getting the wire- and wavetaps were small miracles and were managed only because Goswell didn’t know about them. This is not a man upon whose door you knock and demand anything. If you want to go and beard this lion in his den, you need to enter into negotiations with a delicate touch, your hat in hand. It’s one thing to call up and tell his head of security you are going to drop round for a chat; it is quite another to demand the same of one of the richest and most powerful men in the country.”

  Nobody had anything to say about that for a moment.

  “Bullshit,” Julio said.

  Toni suppressed her smile. She had to agree with that one.

  “That may be, Sergeant, but I am here to say that His Majesty’s government will not be approaching Lord Goswell, save through his attorneys, and cautiously, at that.”

  “Even if we suspect he’s involved in the computer assaults?” Toni said.

  Cooper turned to face Toni. “Even if we knew for sure he was responsible and could prove it, Ms. Fiorella. Which we do not. We have no real evidence other than some very thin circumstantial material: Bascomb-Coombs, who might or might not be involved himself, works for Lord Goswell and is there visiting him. That doesn’t prove much of anything, now does it?”

  Toni knew that Cooper was right. But she also knew in her gut that Bascomb-Coombs was tied into this, and Peel and Ruzhyó were somehow connected to it. But what could they do if the local authorities wouldn’t let them even talk to the parties?

  Alex said, “We can’t barge into his lordship’s house without an engraved invitation. All right. Can we shortstop Peel?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Can you have your field ops pull Peel over and keep him from getting back to the safety of Goswell’s estate?”

  Cooper stared at him. “Why would we want to do that?”

  Alex said, “Okay, follow my logic here. Let’s suppose that Bascomb-Coombs is responsible for the computer disruptions.”

  “All right, for the moment let’s assume that.”

  “If he is, he has to be doing it with help. According to Jay Gridley, this isn’t something you can do cheaply, so somebody substantial has to be backing him.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “Occam’s razor. He’s working for Goswell. He’s at Goswell’s house. How many people can fund a multimillion-dollar project and keep it secret? Wouldn’t that have to be somebody with a lot of clout? Like somebody who owns lock, stock, and barrel a high-end computer company? That gives us Goswell. And wouldn’t Goswell’s chief of personal security have to have some idea who Bascomb-Coombs was? Any op worth his paycheck would surely run background checks on people who cozied up to his boss. If it was me watching over a rich man’s health, I’d want to know everything about everybody who walked in the door. I’d make it my business to know what visitors had for breakfast, where they ate it, and how big a tip they left.”

  “You’re saying that Bascomb-Coombs is the mad hacker, that Goswell knows about it, and that Peel also knows. Your logical chain is weak, even assuming the first link in it is as solid as steel.”

  “Stands to reason if they are all sitting around having tea together, doesn’t it?”

  Cooper gave him a small smile. “Come now, Alex, people who have tea together don’t share all their secrets, do they?”

  Alex flushed. John Howard turned and suddenly found a fascinating spot on the empty wall to stare at. Cooper’s smile grew bigger and warmer. These actions didn’t prove anything, but taken together, on a sudden, deeply intuitional level, an icicle of solid nitrogen formed and stabbed Toni in the heart:

  My God. Had Alex slept with this bitch?

  How? When?

  God in heaven—why?

  Alex cleared his throat and said, “Look, we know Peel is connected to Ruzhyó and the death of a suspected ice man.”

  “The fellow in the bookstore was, according to the coroner, a suicide.”

  “After Ruzhyó or Peel shot him! Peel knows something about all this. You know I’m right. Pull him in and let’s sweat him before more people die and millions of lives are disrupted.”

  There was a long pause. Toni stared at Cooper with the new suspicion still piercing her to her soul. All of the rest of this was nothing. It didn’t matter about Peel or Goswell or Ruzhyó. None of that was important.

  Had Alex betrayed her? Surely not. He couldn’t have. Could he?

  She felt sick.

  Cooper said, “All right. I’ll have to get DG Hamilton to sign off on it, but I suspect we can do that much in the interests of national security.”

  37

  Thursday, April 14th

  M23, South of Gatwick

  Ruzhyó took a couple of deep breaths and blew them out, trying to relax. He had been growing more tight as he drove, gripping the wheel harder, hunching forward, and that wouldn’t do, to be tense when he needed to be loose. A tight man could not move properly. Even knowing that, it always happened. You had to work to overcome it, despite all the years and bodies.

  Ahead of him and one lane over, the gray Neon with the two men in it who had been following Peel since London cruised fifty meters behind the major’s car, using traffic as cover. So intent on tailing Peel had they been, they had not noticed Ruzhyó.

  As soon as he had spotted them, Ruzhyó had made the call and had spoken but one word: “Company.” That had been enough to alert Peel.

  He’d replied. “Got it. I’ll call back later.”

  They had passed Gatwick Airport a few miles back, still heading south on the big motorway as if going to the Sussex
estate. The mobile phone on the car seat next to him rang. Ruzhyó picked it up. “Go ahead.”

  “Have they made you?”

  “No.”

  “Good. We’re getting off at the next exit, about two miles ahead, heading east. Down that road three miles, there is a large oak tree at an intersection with a narrow road to the right. Two miles down that road, on the left is a big sheering barn. We’ll have a chat with our company there. Why don’t you go on ahead and get set up?”

  “Yes.”

  Ruzhyó thumbed the connection off. He accelerated and pulled smoothly ahead of the surveillance car, passed Peel, and was half a mile ahead of them when he turned off the highway at the next exit. The shadowers paid him no attention.

  The oak tree was where it was supposed to be—Ruzhyó measured the distance with his odometer—and the barn, in front of a field of grazing sheep, sat alone and quiet in the middle of a long stretch of nowhere. A perfect place to have a chat you didn’t want anyone to overhear.

  Ruzhyó pulled his car into the barn and shut the door behind it. The place was dusty and smelled of dry hay, wool, and something like hot candle wax. Farm smells, bringing with them quick lances of memory from his days with Anna. He checked out the exits. There were two more at ground level besides the one he’d pulled the car into, and two openings on the upper level, with hoists and ropes and pulleys dangling from them. Peel was a professional; he would pull his car in and get out in such a way as to allow somebody hiding in the barn a clear shot at his followers when they left their car. Probably in front of the smaller door on the building’s southeast side, he figured.

  Ruzhyó checked the magazine in the Firestar, making certain that a round was chambered. He cocked the hammer and put the safety back on. There might not be any shooting at all; if it became necessary, he had eight shots, and seven more rounds in a second magazine, if he had to reload. No semi auto was jam-proof, but he had adjusted the magazines and polished the feed ramp, and the bullet ogive was clean and rounded enough so there shouldn’t be a problem. After firing a few rounds when he’d gotten the piece, he had hand-cycled a hundred cartridges through the action without a misfeed. At this range, if he had to shoot, he’d only need a few to work, and the first one was already there.

  He heard the sound of an approaching engine, easily discerned in the quiet pastures. He took another deep breath and let it out, stretched his neck, and rolled his shoulders. He was ready. He would follow Peel’s lead.

  Peel pulled his car onto the hard-packed dirt next to the barn and circled to his left to force the following car to pull in between him and the building. He stopped, loosened his pistol in its holster, and alighted from his car. He kept the door open and stood partially covered by it. He didn’t see Ruzhyó, but he had noticed the fresh tire prints leading to the barn, so he knew the man was in there. If it was him, Peel would set up behind that door right across from his car, and he bet that the ex-Spetsnaz shooter was already there. He felt a lot better having an old pro watching his arse.

  The Neon pulled off the road and right into perfect position. The car stopped in a light cloud of dust, and as the reddish gray powder settled, two men got out. They wore windbreakers, and they had the moves of somebody carrying firearms, which they certainly had hidden under their jackets. But they didn’t look like coppers, at least not civilian ones. One was a medium-tall brunette, the other a shorter, stockier man with mouse-brown hair cropped short. Were they military? Or Intelligence? What the bloody hell?

  “Good afternoon, gentlemen. May I help you with something?”

  Mouse-brown said, “Major Peel. We wonder if you would come along with us, sir.” Not a question.

  “If you’ll explain who you are and what you want, maybe we can keep this civilized.”

  “We didn’t come to answer questions. We’ll send somebody for your car. You’ll be riding with us.”

  “I shouldn’t think I’d want to do that,” he said.

  “Then we must insist,” Medium-tall said. “Please step over here, sir. And keep your hands in plain sight.”

  “Insist all you want. I’m minding my own business, and I don’t believe it is any of yours.”

  The two exchanged glances, and without speaking, split up and drifted away from each other. This was standard procedure if you were facing a man you considered armed and dangerous. Even if he was very fast on the draw, he would have to swing his weapon from one to another with two opponents, and the farther apart they were, the harder that would be—especially if both opponents were prepared to shoot back. They still had not pulled their own weapons, and that was to his advantage.

  “Let’s not make this difficult, Major,” Mouse-brown said.

  “Gentlemen, I advise you to stand still and keep your hands away from your weapons.”

  Medium-tall grinned and said, “Begging your pardon, Major, but either one of us is ten years younger and ten years faster than you. You don’t really think you’re good enough to take us both?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. It would be more risky if I were alone.”

  Mouse-brown said, “There’s no one else in your car, Peel. How stupid do you think we are?”

  “Fairly stupid, I should say. Why do you think I stopped here, sonny? At this particular quiet spot in the country?”

  Mouse-brown paused in his sideways drift and shot his partner a quick glance.

  “He’s having us on,” Medium-tall said. “A bluff.”

  “You think so?” Peel said. He smiled. “You’ve been behind me since we left London. You think I didn’t know that? I’ve had plenty of time to have a colleague arrive here. You seem like decent lads. Tell me who sent you and what you know, and perhaps you get to walk out of this. Otherwise . . .” he gave them a broad, theatrical shrug.

  “Forget it,” Medium-tall said. “We weren’t born bloody yesterday!”

  Peel raised his voice. “Mr. Ruzhyó! Are you there?”

  The barn door swung up with a creak of rusted hinges and Ruzhyó appeared in the doorway, though he did not step out from his cover. “I am here,” he said. He held the silvery pistol in both hands, pointed at Medium-tall.

  The two men started, surprised.

  Men who had been under the gun, under fire, would have known they didn’t have a chance. You could be faster than Billy the Bloody Kid from the holster but that wouldn’t be nearly quick enough to outdraw a gun already aimed at you.

  The two panicked and went for their guns.

  Ruzhyó had Medium-tall, so Mouse-brown was Peel’s. But before he could clear his weapon, Ruzhyó fired—pow! pow! pow! the tiniest hesitation, then pow! pow! pow! again. Six rounds at maybe five meters, and it was so quick it sounded like two bursts of fully automatic submachine gun fire. Damn, he was fast!

  Medium-tall and Mouse-brown went down like sickled wheat.

  “Shit!” Peel yelled. He finished his draw and hurried toward the downed men. Both were wearing body armor under their jackets, he could see that as he got close. The vests had stopped two rounds each, just as they were supposed to. But the armor had not stopped the rest of Ruzhyó’s Mozambique drill: two to the chest and one to the head. Both men had been shot between the eyes, and they were effectively dead before they hit the ground. Peel had never seen the drill performed better, not even in practice, much less in a hot scenario. Ruzhyó was a master shooter.

  “Damn, how am I supposed to find out anything if you don’t leave one alive to question?”

  Ruzhyó gave him a Slavic shrug. He popped the magazine from the pistol, let it fall to the ground, reloaded the handgun with a second magazine from his pocket, then bent to pick up the fallen magazine. When he straightened, he reached up with one hand and pried a silicone ear plug from one ear, then the other, and dropped those into his pocket along with the nearly empty magazine.

  Good God. Ruzhyó was so cool as to think about bloody ear protection before he had calmly blasted two armed men as neat and quick as you could possibly please. The man mu
st have ice water in his veins.

  Well, there was not any help for it now. Best find out who these two were, if he could. Peel fished in Medium-tall’s pocket until he found a wallet. He opened it, then stared at the ID card behind the clear plastic window. “Oh, Lord! These blokes are MI-6! We’ve just killed two of his majesty’s SIS agents!”

  Ruzhyó shrugged again, scanning the countryside for witnesses.

  Aside from the sheep, who seemed unaffected by the gunshots, there weren’t any prying eyes.

  Peel shook his head. “Come on, help me move the bodies,” Peel said. “We’ve only got a few minutes before they are missed.”

  They were in the crapper now, weren’t they?

  Thursday, April 14th

  MI-6, London, England

  “We have a problem,” Cooper told Michaels. “We’ve lost contact with the team following Peel.”

  Howard, Fernandez, and Toni had gone to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite, and Michaels was once again alone with Cooper in the conference room. “Lost contact with them?”

  “More than half an hour ago. Their last report was that they had pulled off the M23 near Balcombe and were about to detain Peel. We’ve been unsuccessful in our attempts to reach them since.”

  “Do you have a way to find them?”

  “Not exactly. The location transponder in their car stopped sending its signal a few minutes after their last transmission. We know where they were. We’ve sent a military strike team via helicopter to check it out.”

  “They’re either taken or dead,” he said flatly.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “You wouldn’t have scrambled an air strike team if you didn’t think it was likely.”