Hot Pursuit

by Stuart Woods

  “I don’t believe it came from our people. I’ll have some calls made and see if it can be tracked down. Talk to you later.”

  Lance hung up.

  So did Holly.

  —

  LANCE MADE a call to the Agency officer who had helped prepare the file for the president’s intelligence briefing. Her name was Charlotte Weir, and she was a fairly new officer, having joined three years before.

  “Good morning, Charlotte.”

  “Good morning, Director.”

  “You are part of the collaborative effort, are you not, to prepare the president’s daily intelligence briefings?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “Do you recall that, in the discussion of our three persons of interest—those of the poor photographs—there was made mention that one of them might have spent some time at the University of California at Berkeley?”

  “I recall that was said of one of the men.”

  “It was said of two that they were at a British private school. They have since been accounted for.” He brought her up to date on the twins. “I now wish you to speak to whoever contributed the Berkeley information, to place a time frame on when he might have attended, and to thoroughly rake all of Berkeley’s records that might tell us more about him.”

  “I’ll get right on it, Director.”

  “That would please me greatly. Work as quickly as you can.” Lance hung up.

  21

  STONE AND PAT got into the rear seat of the Bentley, and Fred drove them to Stone’s house. He asked Fred to take her luggage upstairs.

  “Which room?” Fred whispered to Stone.

  “Mine,” Stone whispered back. “Come on down to my office and tell me about your idea,” he said to Pat.

  Joan got them some coffee.

  “Have you ever flown your airplane across the Atlantic?” Pat asked.

  “Nope, but I’ve always wanted to. There’s an awful lot of prep to do, I understand—a lot of paperwork.”

  “A client of mine who owns a string of Jaguar dealerships in Britain, Europe, and the States has bought himself a CitationJet4, and he wants it flown to Wichita, where he’s going to do his training. Why don’t you and I fly your airplane over there? Paperwork is what I do, and I can do it fast. I’ve already had a dozen crossings on the northern route, doing ferry flights, so I can show you the ropes. We’ll land in Coventry, which is where both Jaguar and my client live. He’s offered me the loan of a car, if I want to do some touring, and I’ve never had any time to myself in England—I was always in and out.”

  “That sounds very inviting,” Stone said. “But what about your business?”

  “The business is nascent. I can handle what I’ve got on the phone, and your airplane has a satphone. Also, I can’t work out of my new office until this thing with Kevin is settled.”

  “Well, you know the northern route, and I know England. I hitchhiked around the island when I was a student, and I saw a lot of very nice country hotels that I couldn’t afford to stay in. When do we go?”

  “I can get the paperwork in hand by next Monday. How’s that?”

  Stone turned to his computer and checked the next couple of weeks. “Nothing here that can’t be handled by phone or just later. You’re on, but why do we have to do the northern route?”

  “Your airplane has a thirteen-hundred-mile range, and that’s not enough to go nonstop. We’ll fly up to Goose Bay, in Labrador, then to Greenland, where we’ll refuel, then to Reykjavik, Iceland. If we luck into a big tailwind, we might do Goose Bay–Reykjavik nonstop. We can do an overnight there, or we can press on to England. It’ll be about ten hours overall, but we can take turns flying and napping.”

  “You’ve already got an office right down the hall,” Stone said. “All my manuals and paperwork are in my flight bag right over there.” He pointed. “So get to work.”

  She finished her coffee and did just that.

  —

  STONE WAS WORKING on his mail when Dino called. “Word has reached me that yet another of your friends is in trouble,” he said. “Is Pat all right?”

  “She is. I got her out of the house, and first of the week, I’m getting her out of the country.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “To England, and in my airplane.”

  “Your airplane would get halfway there, then splash!”

  “We’re going the northern route: Canada, Greenland, Iceland.”

  “Haven’t you heard it’s winter?”

  “The airplane has a heater. You want to come along?”

  “Is Pat doing the flying?”

  “We’re sharing. She’s flying a delivery back from England, I’ll make the trip back alone.”

  “I’ve got some business in London—maybe I’ll fly back with you.”

  “I could use the company.”

  “How long will it take us, and where do we leave from?”

  “A day or two, weather permitting. We’ll leave from Coventry.”

  “I’m speaking in Birmingham next Wednesday, so that works for me.”

  “Can Viv come?”

  “I’ll ask and get back to you.” Dino hung up.

  —

  LATE IN THE AFTERNOON, Stone had a call from Detective Robert Miller.

  “Just an update,” Miller said. “Kevin Keyes checked out of his hotel early this morning and turned in his rental car. He’s in the wind.”

  “That’s bad news,” Stone said. “Did you check the airlines?”

  “Yes—no reservation. We’ve alerted the Wichita police, in case he goes home, but it’s a long bus ride.”

  “He’s a pilot who does charters, remember? He could have flown out of Teterboro or White Plains, flying a charter or doing a delivery of an airplane. Check the FAA for any flight plans he might have filed.”

  “That’s a good tip. Thanks.” Miller hung up.

  Stone thought it just as well that he and Pat were getting out of town.

  Pat came into his office, and he told her about the call.

  “God,” she said, “Kevin could be anywhere.”

  “I told Miller to check for any filed flight plans.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll get him.”

  “I hope you’re right,” she said.

  22

  MILLIE MARTINDALE LAY in a tub of very hot water and tried not to fall asleep and drown. As the weariness soaked out of her body her mind began to race. What did she have on the third man? He may have been at Berkeley fifteen years ago; at least, that was when the twins were at Eton. Who did she know who went to Berkeley? There was someone in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t put a name to that person.

  She got out of the tub, dried her hair, and lay down on her bed, her hair swept out of the way. After a moment, she had an idea: she had heard that a guy a couple of years ahead of her at Harvard was in federal law enforcement, but she couldn’t remember with what agency. She started with the FBI and got lucky, and she asked for Quentin Phillips. He answered on the fourth ring. “Phillips.”

  “Quentin, it’s Millicent Martindale. How are you?”

  “Millie? I’m great. How about you?”

  “Just fine, thanks.”

  “Are you in D.C.?”

  “Yep. I’m working at the White House for the national security adviser, Holly Barker.”

  “No kidding! Plum job!”

  “If I don’t eat, sleep, or drink, it is. What are you doing over there?”

  “I’m low man on the totem pole in counterintelligence.”

  “Does that include terrorist threats?”

  “In a manner of speaking. Mostly it includes whatever shit they throw at me.”

  “Well, I’m going to throw some shit at you, and I can’t tell
you why, and you can’t tell anybody I asked.”

  “Sounds fascinating. Are you out to get some old boyfriend who done you wrong?”

  “Nope, this is official business—it’s just on a need-to-know basis, and I can’t make a case for your needing to know.”

  “Okay, your rules, but it’s going to cost you a very fine dinner.”

  “I’m up for that, if they ever let me have dinner again.”

  “Good enough for me. Tell me what you need.”

  “I’m going to make some assumptions, and you can correct me if I’m wrong.”

  “What assumptions?”

  “I’m assuming that the Bureau has an ear to the ground on various college campi around the country for terrorist activity.”

  “A reasonable assumption.”

  “I’m assuming that one of those campi is Berkeley.”

  “A more than reasonable assumption.”

  “And I’m assuming that the listening post was operating at least as far back as nine-eleven, maybe even before.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “I’m also assuming that you have or can get access to the files going back that far.”

  “Post nine-eleven, for sure. Before that, we’re probably talking paper, and paper that’s God-knows-where.”

  “Then let’s assume post nine-eleven for the moment.”

  “Okay. What do you need?”

  “I have reason to believe that a student at Berkeley during that period had connections to Al Qaeda or some other such organization.”

  “Name? Description?”

  “I don’t have either, that’s what makes this hard.”

  “What have you got?”

  “My best guess is he was studying under a non-Arab name, maybe even, but not necessarily, his own, and that he may have a family connection to the Middle East, or that he might have been part of some pro-Arab campus group, something like Students for Palestinian Justice, to coin a name. You get the picture.”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Get me a name and a background check, and I’ll give you more than dinner.”

  “Now, that’s an inviting thought. What does it mean?”

  “Whatever you want it to mean.”

  “It would help if I could tell somebody else just a little bit about this. I’ve got to cover my ass.”

  “You can speak in generalities, but you can’t mention me, my boss, or the White House—not under any circumstances. Are we clear on that?”

  “Okay, while I’m covering my ass I’ll cover yours, too. When do you need this?”

  “Oh, last month would be good.”

  “I had a feeling it would be like that.”

  She gave him her cell number. “I’ll wait impatiently for your call.”

  “One more thing: On a scale of one to ten, how important do you think this guy could be?”

  “Twenty-five,” she said.

  He was silent for a moment. “No shit?”

  “Absolutely no shit.” She hung up.

  —

  QUENTIN HUNG UP, too, and he found himself sweating lightly. He had known Millicent Martindale to be a serious person at Harvard, and she was in a serious job now, but he had an annual performance review coming up, and he had to be careful not to get hung out to dry just because he wanted to fuck her, which he did, very badly. In fact, he had always wanted to fuck her, but she had been beyond him—more beautiful, more sophisticated, more desirable. “What the hell,” he said to himself, and he left his cubicle and went down the hall toward his supervisor’s office. This was Lev Epstein, who was assistant director for counterintelligence and, he figured, maybe the smartest person at the Bureau, an assessment with which Epstein would not disagree.

  He walked past Epstein’s office, and his secretary was refreshing her makeup—about to go to lunch, he figured. Epstein, however, didn’t eat lunch, except at his desk. He made another pass and saw the woman look at her watch, pick up her bag, then pick up her phone, no doubt telling her boss she was going to lunch. As soon as she was gone, he walked past her desk and rapped purposefully on Epstein’s door, which was open a couple of feet.

  “Come!” the man shouted. “But it better be good!”

  Quentin opened the door and entered. Epstein had a Mickey Mouse lunchbox on his desk, and he was eating a sandwich. He glared at Quentin.

  “What?” he said, his voice muffled by the sandwich.

  “I’ve got something important,” Quentin said.

  “You don’t know enough to know whether it’s important,” Epstein replied. “You’ve got sixty seconds.”

  Quentin began talking; he chose his words carefully, but he didn’t rush. “A well-placed person of my acquaintance has a lead on what might be a very important terrorist plot. This person has asked me to research who the Bureau might have been interested in at Berkeley just prior to or after nine-eleven. He would be American or American-educated with a non-Arabic name, a student at that time.”

  “Your time is up,” Epstein said.

  “That was only forty seconds.”

  “All right, you’ve got twenty more.”

  “I can’t tell you the name of my contact or where this person works, but based on my prior knowledge, this is a serious request.”

  “Tell me who she is and where she works or get out,” Epstein said.

  “Sorry to trouble you, sir,” Quentin said. He turned and walked out of the office.

  “Come back here!” Epstein growled.

  Quentin came back as far as the door. “Yes, sir?”

  “You think I’m going to trouble myself just so you can get laid?”

  “I happen to know you were stationed in San Francisco about the time of nine-eleven, and my guess is, you were probably running the operation there, so you won’t have to trouble yourself in the least, just remember.” Quentin took a deep breath. “I also know you’re the smartest guy around this place, and you’re not going to blow me off just because I’m low man here.”

  Epstein laughed, spitting pieces of sandwich on his desk. “I would call that hopeful flattery. Okay, I’ll give you a B for balls,” he said. “Now, tell me what you think this is all about.”

  “I think there may have been a deep-cover operative at Berkeley, and that his file, if he had one, might have crossed your desk.”

  “You have a name?”

  “Nope, but it’s probably not Arab. He might have been peripherally involved with some pro-Palestinian or other group, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you remember somebody like that.”

  “Suppose I do?” Epstein said. “Why would I give it to your girlfriend?”

  “Because this person is well-enough connected to make life hell for the Bureau, if we should know something but fail to share it. That’s the sort of thing that could haunt the Bureau after a terrorist attack. On the other hand, if we do share and something comes of it, it will reflect well on counterintelligence.” By which he meant, on Epstein.

  “All right,” Epstein said, “let me sift through my memories.” He swiveled his chair around and stared out the window, his back to Quentin, still eating his sandwich.

  Quentin, though uninvited, took a seat.

  23

  ALL WAS QUIET for the first day, as Pat worked away in her borrowed office. On the second day, packages began to arrive, and Joan stacked them in Stone’s office, because, she said, they would end up there anyway, and there was no point in her humping them into the garage, then back again.

  On the third day, Pat appeared in Stone’s office with a stack of papers nearly a foot high. “Okay,” she said, “you’ve got some signing to do.”

  “What is all this stuff?”

  “Your paperwork for RSVM, MNFS, and a few other things. You have to satisfy both American and European regs if
you want to fly above flight level 280, and you do want to fly higher because if you stay low, you’ll burn so much fuel you’ll end up in the drink well before your destination.”

  Stone began signing, while she double-checked that he had not missed any lines. “Fine,” she said when he had finished. “Now we start opening boxes.”

  The first box yielded a six-man life raft, packed tightly into a bag that would explode when a cord was yanked. “Whatever you do,” Pat said, “don’t pull that cord until the raft is outside the airplane.”

  “I can imagine what that would be like.”

  Other boxes yielded a handheld aviation radio, a marine radio, a GPS locator, two super-duper life jackets, and see-through plastic bags.

  “What are the bags for?” Stone asked.

  “The small one is for the radios that we take into the life raft with us. The large one is for several thousand calories of trail mix and granola bars.”

  “I hate trail mix and granola bars.”

  “Don’t worry, they’ll taste great once you’re afloat in the raft.” She cut open a large box. “Now for the pièce de résistance,” she said, producing two emergency-orange duffel bags. She tossed him one. “Put this on, and don’t take your shoes off.”

  Stone shook the duffel out and unfolded what looked like the deflated corpse of a science-fiction creature.

  “Go ahead, put it on,” she said. “It will save your life, but only if you know how to wear it.”

  Stone took off his jacket, sat in his chair, and shoved his feet into the legs of the thing.

  “Now stand up and put your arms into it,” Pat said.

  Stone wriggled his arms into the sleeves, which ended in integral neoprene gloves. “I could never play the piano in this thing,” he said.

  “Not to worry, there won’t be a piano in the life raft. Now put the top onto your head and zip it up,” Pat commanded.

  With some difficulty Stone managed to get the thing closed.

  “Great! Now you’re ready to float on your back in the North Atlantic Ocean, as icebergs drift by.”

  “If we have the raft, why do we need these things?”

  “To preserve your body heat, which the raft will only partly do. Besides, you’ll want to look your best when the helicopter shows up.”