Стюарт Вудс - Stealth

“Roger and the lady returned to Roger’s flat three days later, so we suppose they had a bit of a holiday. Then an odd thing happened: the following morning they left the flat and took a taxi to an address in Eaton Place, where they met a woman who seemed to be an estate agent. Inquiries were made, and we discovered that the couple had taken a flat — a very nice one — on the top floor. Over the next two days, they packed up Roger’s place and moved into the new flat, and the lady, whose name is Jennifer Sands, did a great deal of shopping for furnishings. We expect to have photographs in a day or two.”

“And who is Jennifer Sands?” Felicity asked.

“She’s English, thirty-nine, quite attractive, and has some considerable personal wealth from her father, now deceased. She got a first at Oxford in languages, one of them Russian. She was once a member of the Communist Party in Britain, but left a year ago, resigning over policy differences.”

“Sounds like Ms. Sands would be attractive to our Russian friends,” Felicity said.

“Yes,” Terry replied, “and one might think that Roger, too, would be someone who could hold their interest. Some of you have known the brigadier over the years. Does anyone think that he might be had by the Russians?”

Tim Barnes spoke up. “I think that, given his recent retirement, Roger might be bought by the Russians. By the way, it won’t hit the papers until tomorrow, but an old acquaintance of mine and Roger’s, Vice-Admiral Simon Garr, retired, was murdered early this afternoon, on Hampstead Heath. Looks like a professional job: two bullets to the head. No one reported hearing the shots.”

“That’s very interesting,” Terry said. “Roger left his new flat at mid-morning today.”

“Where did Roger go?” Felicity asked.

“He took a cab to Trafalgar Square, where he bought a newspaper and got into another cab. A traffic foul-up caused our people to lose him. He returned to his flat in the mid-afternoon.”

Everyone got quiet.

“I wonder,” Terry said, “does anyone think that Roger might have it in him to shoot an old acquaintance in the head?”

Tim Barnes spoke up again. “If the old acquaintance was Simon Garr, I think Roger, at least at one time, might have enjoyed that experience.”

“Terry,” Felicity said, “I think it might be worth the resources to increase the manpower devoted to surveilling Roger.”

“It shall be done,” Terry replied.

“And perhaps,” Felicity said, “they could stop losing him for hours or days at a time.”

“You have the most interesting guests at dinner parties,” Holly said after they had made love and were resting. “And the most interesting conversations.”

“You can thank Dame Felicity for providing both the guests and the topics of conversation,” Stone replied.

“Did Roger Fife-Simpson strike you as someone who might be bought by the Russians?”

“Given what happened to his career, he strikes me as someone who might be very angry with his former associates,” Stone replied.

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?”