ROBERT TIPTON SPOKE BY car radio to a computer operator back at the Tournament Press. Not Dave Hamilton.
Felicity was sick over Dave Hamilton. She’d brought him to Tipton’s attention, she’d sponsored him, rooted for him. She knew she’d let someone down—Dave, the Section, maybe both.
Just another, she thought, in a long series of balls-ups on this operation. The last straw. The news about Dave had led her into open rebellion with the Acting Head of the Section.
Felicity had marched in, demanding clothes. Stingley had waited outside, bewildered, but determined not to be shunted away from the action. Tipton had looked at her, heard a brief report of what had happened at her flat, including the likelihood that she now knew the current whereabouts of Sir Lewis, and began to shout orders into phone.
“I want a team assembled immediately, to be ready at a moment’s notice. Surveillance. Possibly assault. I’ll decide that on the scene. Yes, I’m going. I said on the scene. I want a phone number traced. Felicity, what’s that bloody phone number?”
She told him.
Tipton looked at her. “What was that?”
Felicity repeated the number.
Tipton told the phone never mind about the number. “And I want an ambulance called round—Miss Grace is going back in hospital.” He hung up.
“No,” Felicity said.
Tipton didn’t seem to hear her. “It’s the same bloody number. Our American friend beat a phone number out of Dave Hamilton early tonight, and it’s the same bloody one.”
Felicity’s head hurt. “He did what to Dave Hamilton?”
“It must be important, with Calvin’s risking leaks from two sources.”
“What happened to Dave Hamilton?” Felicity fairly screamed it. She had to get a grip on herself. She had to get some clothes. Her feet were freezing, and the bottom of her robe was soaking from the walk from Stingley’s car.
Tipton told her about Dave Hamilton, and that settled it. Her no when the subject of going back to hospital had come up had been reflex—now she was adamant. She was not getting in the ambulance; she was coming with him. It was her fault, and she was determined to fix it. She had too much invested in this case, she said. An eye, for instance.
Tipton never actually acquiesced. Felicity simply announced her intentions, ran down to Disguises and Wardrobes, and dressed herself. Thick socks, lace-up boots. A workman’s jumpsuit over her nakedness. A scarf, and an anorak like the one Bellman had been wearing. She felt like a bloody paratrooper.
A glance at Natalie’s makeup mirror showed her that her bandage had come loose, dangling from a bit of adhesive stuck to her eyebrow. She pulled it the rest of the way off and had a look in the mirror. The socket of her left eye looked like a recent wound, but it wasn’t bleeding. Grunter hadn’t damaged her as much as she feared.
Felicity couldn’t help noticing what it did to her face, that red mess collapsing in on itself in the middle of it. Her other eye burned with held-back tears until Felicity told herself there was work to do and put it from her mind. She found the first aid kit, and taped a gauze pad in place over the hole, doing, she told herself, fully as good a job of it as any doctor could.
She returned to Tipton to find him trying to get into his greatcoat while speaking on the phone. Stingley was in the room now, with the air of a man who has won a point. He gave Felicity a thumbs-up sign as she entered the office.
“Bugger the Special Branch,” Tipton said. “We are not telling the Special Branch. They have the power to make arrests, fine. We’ll call them to make their precious arrests as soon as we get this sorted out. Now, get moving. We’ll be in the lobby.”
Tipton hung up the phone. “If we can get this mess sorted out,” he mumbled. He looked up at Stingley and Felicity. “Do either of you know what the hell’s become of Bellman?”
Silence.
“I didn’t think so. We have him to thank for this. Him and the rest of the bloody Americans.”
The bloody Americans had occupied conversation in the command car until they started spotting the Russians. The Section people were in four cars—two people in each, except for the command car, which carried a driver, Tipton, and the two interlopers. Three of the cars reported over the radio that they had seen men in parked cars in the immediate neighborhood of the Tombs, a neighborhood not likely to have much traffic at that time of night. (Stingley had been the one in Tipton’s car to spot them, a fact that irritated the Acting Section Chief no end.)
The license numbers of the parked cars had been radioed in to the Tournament Press. Tipton, impatient, had just called back for results.
Which he got. They were the plate numbers of known or suspect KGB vehicles in London. Every one of them.
Tipton switched channels and spoke to his team. “All right. Talk to them. Hard. Approach C. Detain by force if necessary. As soon as you’re free, rendezvous with my car at the target. Bring prisoners, or guests, we better call them.” He clicked off, and spoke to Felicity in the back seat. “There, something for the Special Branch to do. We’ll arrest them on arms charges. They’ll all have diplomatic immunity, but it will make a nice splash for the newspapers.” To the driver he said, “All right, enough mooching around. Target, now.”
It took less than half a minute to get there, even with the snow. As they drove down the block toward the museum they saw a car parked directly in front of it.
“Of all the cheek...” Stingley breathed.
The streetlamp reflecting from the snow lit the scene like daylight. As soon as they showed signs of stopping, a figure dashed from the doorway of the Tombs and jumped into the car, which sped off, throwing a rooster tail of snow behind it.
“Follow them,” Tipton ordered.
“No!” Felicity said. “Stop the car!”
“Are you mad?” Tipton began, but Felicity cut him off.
“It’s a decoy,” she said. “They’re still inside.”
“Of course they are,” Stingley said. “It’s an old cracksman’s trick. A confederate leads the coppers a merry chase, and you arrest him for reckless driving, or some other heinous crime, while the other waltzes away with the swag.”
“All right,” Tipton said. “But it may not be.” He asked the driver if he could still catch the fleeing car.
“Sure. He’ll be a wreck if he keeps to that speed on these roads.”
“We’ll split up. You chase him, the three of us will go inside.”
Tipton had the driver wait only long enough to get something from the boot, then took off in pursuit of the other car.
Stingley grinned when he saw it. “Handy,” he said. “Metal jaws, like the fire brigade use. Powerful. I was wondering how we were going to get inside through oak doors, but that thing will have them open like a tin of sardines.”
“That was the idea,” Tipton told him. He handed the machine to the policeman. “Here, you invited yourself, earn your keep.”
Stingley blew on his gloveless hands to warm them, then took the metal jaws. He was about to ask where Miss Grace was, but a quick look around showed that she was already at the door, touching it with flat palms as if she intended to push it in single-handed.
Tipton and Stingley ran to join her.