When Kit carded into room 811 at the Palo Alto Westin, John Barber was set up on the bed, working a laptop, while Gannon was by the window with a camera on a tripod.
She put down the coffee and sandwiches on the desk of the tight discount room and went over and huddled next to Gannon.
“How’s it looking?”
“See for yourself,” Gannon said, edging back the curtain.
Kit bent to the Nikkor zoom lens that was pointed at the window of Dawn Warner’s suite across the street.
Its viewfinder showed a balcony, a glass door, and a portion of the suite’s living room. Through the gap in the curtains the blown-up view in the ten-thousand-dollar spy camera was vivid enough to pick up the wood grain in the credenza.
Gannon and Barber had been at the airport with the surveillance equipment waiting for Kit when she landed. She already had the New York office head, Bill Ferguson, help her get a bead on Dawn Warner’s whereabouts, so they had headed straight from the airport to the Clement.
They found an almost perfect surveillance vantage point at the Westin just across the street, and then Gannon had gone across into the Clement Hotel covertly. He’d managed to plant two bugs, one on her room’s phone line from the basement and another audio bug in the hall just outside the room.
They still might do a counter-intel sweep for them but Kit didn’t think so. From what they’d already heard they seemed to be very much in a hurry about something.
“I see steam,” Kit said, looking through the camera. “Okay, there she is by the mirror scrubbing up, dress on the bed there. Gucci. My, my. This dinner they’re heading to must be très chic. What’s the name of this mind-blowing new restaurant again?”
“Flower Moon West,” Gannon said.
“Flower Moon West. How...something.”
“Upscale yet earthy?” Gannon tried.
“Stuck-up rich asshole?” John Barber said.
“There you go, John. You win,” Kit said, laughing.
“Wait, I hear something.”
“Is she speaking Chinese again?” Kit said.
That Warner had received two phone calls on the room phone from people speaking Chinese was quite shocking. But that Warner had answered them back also in Chinese was even more so.
Expert-level Chinese was quite a curious skill for a top-echelon US Justice Department official to have.
But it was all starting to fit, Kit thought. Warner, Weber, China.
Weber’s interview in Wired magazine said Sonexum was going to be looking into making a bigger move into the Pacific Rim.
Also, what had Warner said in DC?
This is about trillions, Kit. With a T.
“No. No Chinese this time. Worse,” John Barber said, leaning into the headphone. “She’s singing again.”
“What now? More vintage Whitney Houston?” Gannon said.
Kit shook her head. As Warner got ready, she was rocking her personal play list. It was heavy on eighties and nineties love ballads. A countdown of pure cheese, Kit thought.
“No, wait. Let me guess,” Kit said. “Celine Dion?”
“‘I’d do anything for love,’” John Barber sang dramatically in almost pitch perfect imitation of Meatloaf. “‘But I won’t do that.’”
Gannon and Kit burst out laughing.
“That’s really good, John. I didn’t know you had such a high and sensitive singing voice,” Kit said.
“Yeah, a little too good, John,” Gannon said.
“Heads up. Her room phone’s ringing,” Barber suddenly said, clicking the audio up on the laptop speaker.
“Hi,” said a man’s voice.
“It’s the driver. Fitzgerald,” Barber said.
“I told you not to use the landline,” Warner said.
“I know. My phone died. I’m in the lobby.”
“What is it?”
“I just wanted you to know he’s here.”
“Gandalf?”
“Yes, they just landed.”
“How’s he looking?” Warner said.
“Harris said okay. He’s pouring coffee into him. He’s going to make him shower at the hotel.”
“He’s got a suit?”
“Yes. He has one with him. He has everything with him.”
“His passport everything?”
“Yes. Harris checked first thing.”
“Passport?” Kit mouthed.
“And have him shave, too. That thing on his chin is vile. If I have to sit next to it during dinner, I’ll be blowing chunks before the second course.”
“He’ll do what he can.”
“And tell him to get a move on. Our guests don’t do late. And charge your damn phone.”
“I will. Sorry.”
The line clicked off.
“Gandalf?” Kit said. “Who’s Gandalf? Not Ethan Weber. He’s already at the other hotel.”
“Gandalf with his passport?” Gannon said, squinting. “I guess we’re going to need to find that out.”