Newton’s Fire (8 page)

‘There ought to be a law.’

‘There is, apparently. But I’m the one it holds liable, would you believe? One rule for us, another for telephone poles.’ He turned on the ignition, made to lower the roof.

‘You couldn’t leave that up for the moment, could you?’ asked Luke.

‘Sure,’ said Pelham. He glanced quizzically at him. ‘Why?’

‘There are some bikers out looking for me. And the police.’

‘The police?’

‘It’s nothing to make you ashamed of me. I swear it isn’t.’

‘Of course not, mate. I know you better than that.’

Luke nodded. After the day he’d had, such a simple vote of confidence moved him more than he could say. ‘If the police do stop us, just tell them I turned up out of the blue. You know nothing about anything. I’ll back you up, I promise.’

‘You quiet ones, eh,’ grinned Pelham, pulling away. ‘What was it? A bank?’

‘That’s where the money is,’ agreed Luke.

They reached the junction with the main road. ‘Where are we going?’ asked Pelham.

‘I need to find a woman.’

‘What have I been telling you?’

‘Her name’s Rachel Parkes,’ said Luke. ‘She works at Caius College. But she’s not there this afternoon. I already checked.’

Pelham slid him a glance. ‘You haven’t turned into some weird stalker-man, have you?’

‘Look who’s talking.’

‘Fair enough.’ Pelham pulled out his phone. ‘Caius, right?’

‘Yes. Why? Do you know someone there?’

Pelham grinned as he scrolled through his address book. ‘Mate, I know someone everywhere.’

The man had a Midwest accent, and he sounded to be in his fifties or even his sixties, though Croke had been wrong in such assessments before. ‘You don’t need to know my name,’ he said. ‘But my boss was just called by a friend of yours. A
reverend
friend.’

‘Ah,’ said Croke. So this was the Office of the Vice President calling. Instinctively he set down his glass and sat up a little straighter, only to smile when he caught himself at it.

‘We’ll speak only this once,’ said the man. ‘If you ever breathe a word about it, you’ll regret it.’

‘I’ll bet it turns your wife on when you talk like that,’ said Croke.

‘Don’t get smart with me. You’ve already made a bad impression coming in through the back door like this.’

‘Would I have got in through the front?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘Maybe not to you.’

‘If we’re going to work together—’

‘We’re going to work together just fine. You know why? Because your boss just ordered you to help us, or we wouldn’t be talking. So stop wasting my time and get on with it.’

A rustling of paper. ‘I’m reading your CIA file,’ said the man. ‘Fascinating stuff.’

Croke took a sip of bourbon. ‘I do my best.’

‘Front companies in D.C., London and Hong Kong. I’ll bet they could do with an audit.’

‘They’re not front companies. They provide high-level business intelligence and security consultancy services.’

‘That’s not what it says here. It says here they’re cover for your arms deals.’

‘Is this really what you want to talk about?’

A page was turned. ‘Your father is Dr Arthur Croke, I believe. The guy who used to run our USAF lab up in Rome.’

‘He still runs it.’

‘Really?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘I thought he’d had to have retired by now. I mean, god, he was getting on when
I
met him. And that has to be twenty years ago, at least.’

‘He’s been running it thirty-three years,’ said Croke, with genuine pride.

‘A fine man. A real American patriot. His whole life dedicated to his country.’

‘Yes.’

‘So despite some of these …
startling
things I’m reading in your file, we’d have no reason to doubt that you’re a patriot too; no reason to fear you’d ever do anything to harm our nation or bring shame upon your father.’

‘Quite right.’

‘Good. So the story’s going to run like this: in your work as an arms dealer – forgive me,
as
a
security consultant
– you sometimes bump up against people of dubious character. It so happens that two of those people have recently and separately warned you of an attack being planned on our great ally Britain. As a loyal American citizen, you naturally passed this intelligence on to us. It happens to tally with some chatter we’ve been picking up ourselves. We’re therefore about to warn the Brits that we fear some bad guys are planning an atrocity in and around Crane Court. The good news is that your sources are prepared to pass along new info as they get it. The bad news is that they’ll only speak to you. But you’ve agreed to be our middleman, passing that information on in real time.’

Croke snorted. ‘So if this turns to shit, you can put all the blame on me.’

‘Of course. What did you expect? Now, you’re already on your way to England, right? Which airport?’

‘Cambridge.’

‘We’re shifting you to City of London. One of our people will meet you there. His name’s Richard Morgenstern.’ He gave Croke his cell and other contact details. ‘He’s seconded to a new counterterrorism group the Brits have just set up; but he’s loyal to us. To us
personally
, I mean. To my boss.’

‘Does he know what we’re looking for?’

‘He knows
what
. We had to tell him that much. But he doesn’t know
why
. My boss just told him that finding it was her number one priority right now. That’s all he needed to know. He’s a true patriot.’

‘Another one. Excellent. We can sing anthems together.’

‘We’re not going to talk again, you and me. Everything is to go through Morgenstern. And if you ever breathe one word about our involvement in all this, you’re a dead man. Am I clear?’

Croke smiled. ‘As crystal,’ he said.

Before setting fire to Penelope Martyn’s house, Max Walters had flipped through her address book to find
out where Rachel Parkes lived. Now he pulled up
opposite
her front door. There was no sign of life inside, and when he tried her telephone he was switched over to voice mail. He glanced around at Kieran, who was monitoring the old bat’s email account on his laptop. ‘Any reply yet?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Okay,’ Walters said. ‘Let’s do it.’

They waited for a cyclist to pass, crossed the road. The afternoon had grown sticky, hinting at storms. A communal front path led to a shared front door with buzzers for the top and bottom floor flats. He rang the ground-floor bell. No reply. An elderly couple walking slowly by along the pavement darted suspicious looks at them. Walters smiled cordially and wished them a good afternoon, but it did no good. They kept glancing around as they crossed the road and went inside a house opposite. Then their net curtains began to twitch. ‘Shit,’ muttered Walters.

‘Maybe there’s a back way in,’ suggested Kieran.

They walked to the end of the street, turned left. ‘What about those locks?’ asked Walters. ‘Any problem?’

‘The Yale’s a piece of piss,’ Pete assured him. ‘The Chubb’ll be a bit harder. Say a minute for the pair. Plenty of time for those old farts to see us and call the cops.’

They turned up the next street. An unbroken terrace blocked any hope of breaking into Parkes’ flat through a rear window. ‘Maybe we’d better wait until dark,’ said Kieran.

Walters snorted. ‘Today’s about the longest bloody day of the year. And what if she opens her email while we’re waiting?’ He took a deep breath. He hadn’t yet reported this mess to Croke, hoping to sort it all out first. But he couldn’t put it off any longer. He didn’t want Pete and Kieran listening in, however, so he walked off a little way before calling Croke’s number.

‘Have you got my papers?’ asked Croke.

‘Yes,’ said Walters. ‘But there’s been a hitch.’

‘A
hitch
?’ asked Croke.

Walters had meant to play it cool, but somehow the story came blurting out. Croke had that effect on him. ‘We’re outside the girl’s place now,’ he finished. ‘But there are curtains twitching everywhere.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Croke acidly. ‘I ask you to buy me some papers, and instead I get arson and a dead woman. And now you’re worried about
curtains
?’

‘We work for one of your companies, sir. If we’re arrested, it’ll lead the police straight back to you. I wanted to make absolutely sure you think it’s worth the risk.’

Silence. ‘Okay,’ said Croke finally. ‘Stay where you are. I’ll see what I can arrange.’

Pelham scrolled for a number then jammed his phone between shoulder and ear. ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘It’s me. Yeah. Listen, that friend of yours at Caius. Sonia, isn’t it? You couldn’t give her a call for me, could you? Brilliant. I need to get hold of a girl there. Rachel something …’ He glanced across at Luke for a prompt.

‘Rachel Parkes,’ said Luke.

‘Rachel Parkes,’ relayed Pelham. He listened a moment, laughed loudly. ‘No. Nothing like that, I promise. A favour for a mate.’ He laughed again. ‘What do you mean? I’ve got plenty of mates. I just won’t introduce you or you’ll run off with one of them.’ He nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, anything you can get. Mobile, home phone, address, whatever. Thanks, sweetheart. Love you.’ He killed the call, turned to Luke. ‘Miriam,’ he said. ‘I think she might be the one.’

‘You always think they might be the one.’

‘Keeps the heart young, falling in love. Try it yourself sometime.’

‘Maybe next week. This week I’m focusing on staying alive.’

‘You’ll need something to write on when she calls back.’ He gestured at his glove compartment. ‘Have a rootle around in there.’

‘Jesus, mate,’ said Luke, as he precipitated a small avalanche of candy bars and boiled sweets.

‘Better give me one of those,’ said Pelham. ‘Wouldn’t want to faint from sugar deficiency; not with all these telephone poles around.’

‘Was that when the last one attacked?’ asked Luke, finding himself a stubby pencil and a notepad. ‘While you were feeding?’

‘What are you? A claims adjuster?’ He tore the wrapper off one with his teeth, stuffed the molten mess inside into his mouth. He was still chewing when his phone rang, had to give himself a couple of moments to swallow it away. ‘Hey, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘Any joy?’ He listened a moment, grinned. ‘You’re a star.’ He called out phone numbers and an address for Luke to jot down. ‘Thanks, gorgeous,’ he said. ‘And we’re still on for tomorrow, yeah? Great. Then take care, now.’ He ended the call and handed Luke his phone so that he could try the various numbers. Without success. ‘Do you want to go sit outside her place?’ asked Pelham. ‘You can’t consider yourself a proper stalker until you’ve done that.’

‘How far is it?’

Pelham turned on his GPS, typed in her address. ‘Other side of town,’ he said. ‘Twenty minutes or so.’ He gave Luke a pointed look. ‘Just about long enough for you to tell me what the fuck’s going on.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Luke. He took a moment to order his thoughts. ‘Remember that business with the Uni?’

Pelham nodded soberly. ‘Of course.’

‘I tried to get myself another job, but I was way too toxic. It was clearly going to be a year or two before the whole thing died down, so I decided to make a virtue of necessity, write my book. I’d been talking about it long enough.’

‘Telling me.’

‘I had some savings, but it was still going to be pretty tight, you know; so I put the word out that if there was any work—’

‘I asked around,’ said Pelham. ‘I swear I did. But you know how things are.’

‘I wasn’t having a go. I’m just explaining the background. Because around last Christmas this guy rings out of the blue. He tells me his name is Steven, though I doubt now that it really was. He says that he’s a lawyer and that he’s got a possible job for me. One of his clients is apparently a Newton obsessive.’

‘You should get on famously, then.’

‘This client had commissioned him to track down all of Newton’s papers still missing from the Sotheby’s auction. You know about that, right?’

‘Do I?’ asked Pelham. He pulled up at a set of lights, indicated to turn left. ‘Tell you what: why don’t you give me the refresher?’

Richard Morgenstern sounded young, enthusiastic, and distinctly Texan. ‘Great to hear from you, sir,’ he boomed, when Croke called him. ‘ I’m on my way to City Airport now. You’re not there already, are you?’

‘No. But I need something done and I hoped you’d be able to help.’

‘If I can, I will. Anything for a man like you.’

‘A man like me?’

‘A friend of
hers
. She called me herself, you know? I mean, hell, I saw her a few times during the campaign, and once at the Academy. But I never
spoke
to her before. And she wasn’t my Commander-in-Chief then. It’s not the same, is it?’

‘No. I guess not.’

‘You know what she told me? She told me this is her number one priority right now. She said this trumps
everything
.’ He laughed a little giddily, as though he still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘So tell me what you need. If it’s in my power—’

‘There’s an email that could be problematic,’ said Croke. ‘I need it deleted.’

‘Civilian or government.’

‘Civilian.’

‘Hell,’ said Morgenstern. ‘It would be.
Reading
an email’s easy. We get copies of everything sent anywhere. But
deleting
one is hard. The service providers can be real assholes. They like evidence of threat or wrongdoing. They like
warrants
. Can we take this to the courts?’

‘No,’ said Croke.

‘Then I don’t know what to suggest.’

‘How about the police?’ asked Croke. ‘Will they do what you ask without going to a judge?’ He outlined his idea.