Howard closed his office door, his mobile telephone held tight to his ear. ‘It’s a go for today, Grady,’ he said, calmly.
‘As planned?’
Howard glanced down at the transcript of the text-message exchange before answering. ‘Yes. Get to the woman’s house for 1300 hours. She’ll be waiting for him in the bedroom; the front door will be unlocked. Make sure no one sees you.’
‘Roger that. And has Petre confirmed?’
‘Yes, he’ll be taking care of the delay. Target two won’t reach the plot until about 1315 hours. You’ll have more than enough time.’
‘OK. Just to check, you want her dead on the bed, him to look like the killer? But if things go tits up and we’re unable to arrange the scene as required, Petre will remove both bodies covertly at 1330 hours?’
‘Confirmed. You know all this – so why the questions? I’m relying on you to get this right, Grady.’
There was a pause. ‘Cathy thinks it’s too elaborate.’
‘I have my reasons and I don’t need to explain myself to her,’ Howard snapped. Grady didn’t respond. ‘1300 hours today,’ he continued. ‘Call me at 1400 with confirmation. And Grady – don’t fuck this one up. This can’t come back to bite us on the arse. It has to look like suicide.’
The line went dead.
Howard returned to his office chair, inhaling deeply as he sank into it. To be fair to Cathy, she was right. The arrangements had been rushed and were a little complex, but, given that his original plan to ensure a clean, deniable operation had failed thanks to the selected agent not being up to the task, the new arrangement was a reasonable alternative.
Exactly what he would do about the disappointing response from the agent would have to wait, but of the need to do something, he was certain. Sometimes, people needed to be reminded just how much they owed.