why this man Andrew Quincy is so interested in us,” Anya said. Kori had followed her out of the Connaught and stopped her just as she was about to wave down a taxicab. She explained what happened and the two went back inside the hotel. Kori managed to snag a couple of aspirins from the front desk clerk for her splitting headache, then the two agents sat down at a small table at the far end of the lobby to figure out their next move.
“Well, he obviously knows who we are and why we’re in London,” Kori said. “That much seems certain.”
“But how did he find us here? Kori, we have been so careful about our movements since we checked out of the Savoy. We have not been followed, I am sure of it. And nobody knows we are here at the Connaught.”
“Almost nobody,” Kori said thoughtfully. “I can think of one person who knows. I had a drink with him here just last night, as a matter of fact.”
“Kori, what are you saying?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but he is also the only one in London who knows what it is we are investigating. The only one who’s known from the moment my plane touched down at Heathrow. Oh, it’s all starting to fit together. Don’t you see?”
“Kori. You are saying that MI5 agent Victor Graham is somehow involved with Quincy? That is quite a bold statement. I know you do not care for this man, but—”
“Anya, think about it. What other explanation is there for him being so obstinate about sharing information? Any information. Or for closing the case on Burke, for that matter. Why would he do that? ‘You can go back to America now,’ he told me. Sure, I’ll bet he’d love that.”
“But you heard Cooper. Twenty-five years of service. Decorations and medals. Even from the queen. ‘Top-shelf,’ Cooper called him.”
“Look, I know it’s hard to believe, but when you consider everything, Anya, it’s the only thing that makes sense. He lied about Quincy, remember? Told me he worked at White’s. We figured it was because he was embarrassed that I had uncovered a name he hadn’t. That it was just a bruised ego. But that wasn’t it at all. He knew the name, after all! I told him ‘Quincy’ but it was Graham who told me ‘Andrew.’ He just didn’t want us investigating Quincy. And then closing the Burke case? It wasn’t just to us. I’ll bet he closed it to everybody. He doesn’t want anyone prying into it. He’s sabotaging the investigation, Anya. And when we met last night, he insisted on meeting me here. ‘Where are you staying now?’ he’d asked. Anya, how did he know we were no longer at the Savoy? Hmm? How?”
Anya was quiet, reflecting on Kori’s observations. Finally, she said, “Okay, so if Graham is involved with Quincy, he might be involved with the London mafia.”
“Yes.”
“But even if that is true, we still do not have a connection to the kidnapping.”
“Except that Quincy is supposedly a friend of the prince. That’s all we’ve ever had. Well, that and the IOUs to Holland, whose name just happens to be Turner. But now we have something else.”
“Which is?”
“The fact that Graham has been impeding our investigation into the kidnapping. You can’t deny it, right? So why has he been doing that? And why send Quincy to follow us? I’ll tell you why. Because Graham is involved with it!”
“I do not know, Kori. Everything you are saying makes sense, but—”
“We’ve got to call the chief, Anya. We can’t sit on this. It needs to be known that the very person who is in charge of the investigation into the kidnapping of the prince might well be involved with the kidnappers!”
Director Richard Eaglethorpe was not convinced, bringing up Anya’s objection.
“Agent Briggs, even if what you are saying is correct, even if Graham is somehow affiliated with the London mafia, we still do not have a direct connection between the mafia and the kidnapping. I’m not saying you’re wrong; I’m just saying that the connection isn’t there.”
Kori and Anya were still at the table in the lobby, but now Kori was on the phone to HQ. The throbbing in her head was starting to disappear, or maybe she just wasn’t noticing it anymore.
“So why has Graham continually blocked our investigation?” she asked. “From the very beginning.”
“A connection that is not circumstantial. Look, Kori, I hear what you are saying. But this is a very serious charge and one that has to be backed up with real, verifiable evidence. Something tangible and not just a loose affiliation of happenstances. Besides which, you still haven’t connected any of this to Newton Dempsey.”
“Maybe not, but Chief, listen, tomorrow is the deadline. Someone has to tell the PM that the exact wrong person is leading his country’s investigation.”
“Not without evidence, Agent Briggs,” Eaglethorpe repeated.
“There’s no time, Chief. And the prince’s life is hanging in the balance.”
Eaglethorpe was quiet for a moment, contemplating the options. “Look, here’s what we’ll do,” he said at last. “MI5 is not the only game in town. A member of the royal family has been kidnapped. You don’t think every agency in the country is working on that? MI5 is the public face of the investigation, but I’m very sure that MI6 is busy on it, too, in their own way. As it happens, I have a contact there. An old friend of mine. Let me make a phone call and set up a meeting for you. We probably should have done that sooner, but I was reluctant to circumvent the people the president set us up with. At least without good cause.”
“So you believe me.”
“I didn’t say that. But you definitely have some information that someone independent from MI5 ought to be informed about. We have a duty to pass that information along, regardless of its current state of provability. At the same time, maybe you can learn what MI6 knows. That certainly couldn’t hurt. In my estimation, the huge missing piece to this puzzle is Newton Dempsey’s connection. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“All this other stuff is interesting, perhaps even relevant, but it’s not getting us any closer to finding Dempsey and, therefore, the prince.”
“Of course.”
“So sit tight. Let me make a phone call to my friend and get you in there. I’ll get right back to you.”
SIS, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, commonly referred to as MI6, was formed in 1909 and grew by leaps and bounds during the Second World War when it was part of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, a department of the British War Office. It was Section 6 of the Directorate, hence, the MI6 abbreviation. The agency was instrumental in code-breaking during the war. So secretive was MI6, that its existence wasn’t even acknowledged until 1994. Today, the agency continues to deal almost exclusively with foreign intelligence, but when a prince goes missing, it’s all hands on deck. Eaglethorpe was right; MI6 had their own investigation underway.
The SIS building was in Vauxhall, a twenty-minute drive from the Connaught. It rested on the Thames and looked like a fortress. Kori and Anya had to go through three different security checkpoints before they could be escorted to the office of Chief Security Officer Bentley Hayes, Eaglethorpe’s contact.
Hayes, tall and solid with salt and pepper hair and friendly eyes, was keenly interested in the information the Rampart agents had to offer. Finally, Kori thought. It felt good to be heard. She and Anya were sitting across from Hayes at a rather large desk in his corner office looking over the river.
“I only wish we had more for you,” Hayes said. “Frankly, we’re hitting dead ends. It’s been frustrating, to say the least. But this London mafia angle is intriguing. And worth pursuing, if you ask me.” He spoke into his intercom. “Reynolds, come in here, please.”
Presently a lean, pretty woman, probably around thirty, entered the office. “Leila Reynolds, these are US intelligence agents Kori Briggs and Anya Kovalev.”
“Pleased, I’m sure,” the woman said.
“They have some interesting information that may or may not have a bearing on the kidnapping. I’ll explain it all later. For now, I want us to begin surveilling John Holland.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Sir John Holland?”
“One and the same. And I want a tail put on someone else, too.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Agent Victor Graham of MI5.”
The woman’s eyes widened a second time. “Begging your pardon, sir, but you mean for us to spy on an MI5 agent?”
“That’s precisely what I mean. And put our best operatives on it. Pronto, Reynolds.”
“Yes, sir. Straightaway, sir.”
Leila Reynolds scurried out of the office. Hayes leaned back in his chair. “So how is Richard doing, anyway?” he asked.
“Director Eaglethorpe is doing just fine, sir,” Kori replied.
“We worked together years ago, you know. Richard was stationed in Amsterdam.”
“Actually, he’s told us very little about his past.”
“Amsterdam,” Hayes repeated, looking off into the distance and smiling. “My goodness, those were some jolly good times.” Then he caught himself and shook off his reverie. “I met him in Romania, you know. We were both sent there in 1989 by our respective agencies to get a handle on what became known as the Romanian Revolution. The people were rebelling against communism, like much of Eastern Europe at the time. This was only a couple of years before the fall of the Soviet Union. It was a time of great change. I’m sure you two were just children. Anyway, the leader of Romania was a dictator named Nicolae Ceaușescu.”
“Yes, I have read about him,” Anya said. “When his government was overthrown, Ceaușescu was executed by the people.”
“On Christmas Day,” Hayes added. “Your boss and I were there.”
“I am sure it must have been fascinating to watch as history played itself out in those years,” Anya remarked.
“Indeed it was.”
“I’d like to get back to your time in Amsterdam, sir,” Kori smiled impishly.
“Ha! I’ll bet you would. Well, it was a long time ago and it’s probably best if we leave it there. But I will say this: your chief is a damn good fellow.”
“No argument there, sir,” Kori said.
“The thing about Romania that was so interesting was that Ceaușescu ran a police state and he tried to censor all news coming from other Eastern European countries, but he couldn’t—yes, Reynolds?”
The agents turned to see Leila Reynolds in the doorway.
“Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, “but we have some news on MI5 agent Victor Graham.”
“Already? Outstanding.”
“Well, actually, sir, as it turns out, we don’t exactly need to surveil him.”
“What do you mean, Reynolds?”
“Well, you see, he’s dead, sir.”
“What?!”
“The police just found his body in the Thames. He’d been shot. Execution style, sir. In the back of the head.”