Stuart Woods: Severe Clear

“Sounds good.”

“What’s really good is, Leo showed us Vance’s old bungalow, which has been empty since his death, and he’s going to redo it for us, to our specifications.”

“That sounds wonderful!”

“Yeah, but I don’t have any experience with that kind of space planning.”

“Why don’t you talk to James Rutledge? He was trained as an architect, then he was with Architectural Digest, and now he does just the sort of thing you need. You were at the High Cotton Ideas party-did you like that place?”

“Oh, wow, did I!”

“Well, Jim was the designer on that. Get Leo to send you the plans, then send them to Jim for a look.”

“He’s sending them over today, so I’ll call Jim as soon as we’re back.”

“Can’t hurt to start early.”

Hattie wandered onto the patio, looking sleepy, and sat down.

“Good morning,” Stone said.

“Is it?” Hattie asked, looking at the sky and squinting. “I can’t tell.”

Stone laughed. “Trust me, it is. Are you all ready for your performance tonight?”

Hattie looked alarmed. “I forgot about that. Don’t remind me.”

“Relax, you’ll do fine.”

A waiter appeared and took everybody’s breakfast order.

Steve Rifkin had not slept well. He had doubled his crew for the overnight search of The Arrington’s theater, where the two presidents would hold their joint signing and press conference at ten A.M., and now he was up early and walking around The Arrington’s theater, having a final look for himself.

His search detail leader approached. “Don’t worry, boss,” he said, “this place is clean.”

“We’re missing two bombs,” Rifkin said.

“I understand that, but I don’t think the other two even made it onto the property.”

Rifkin looked around. “All right, seal this place-nobody in here that isn’t essential to the press conference. There’s a list-stick to it.”

“Right, boss.” The man went away to do his work.

Hamish McCallister arrived at the theater, along with at least a hundred other reporters, each with his credentials hung around his neck. He found a seat in the fourth row of the theater, which was a structure half-embedded in the landscape on the north side of the hotel’s grounds. He stood in front of his seat and looked around the big room as his colleagues, many of them recognizable from television, filed into the theater. This, he reflected, would have made a wonderful target for one of his three small bombs, killing the two presidents and most of the media representatives present.

But that was not a worry for Hamish. He didn’t need the other two bombs now, and the Secret Service had the other one. The device in the Vuitton steamer trunk would do the work of a thousand of the smaller bombs.

Secret Service agents, a dozen of them with sniffer dogs, wandered the room, making a final check. The dogs hadn’t helped find the missing bombs because one was concealed in a place no one would ever look, and the other was in a vehicle that had already been searched several times.

Half the reporters in the room were on their cell phones; the other half were scribbling in their notebooks. Hamish watched them, feeling relaxed and content. His plans were made, and they would be carried out. He took out his throwaway cell phone and sent messages to Wynken and Blynken. He had already made his travel arrangements. He would not need the Cessna Caravan; it was now his backup escape plan. He sent a text to the pilot, instructing him to be ready for takeoff at three P.M.

Then a hush fell over the room as the president of the United States, accompanied by the president of Mexico, entered the theater from stage right and took their seats at a table at the center of the stage.

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.”