CHAPTER 5 – THE CHIEF SETS THINGS UP
"I'm glad you could make it, Triple-O Five," Stolemaker said as Richard Hugh came into his office.
Richard decided that being two minutes late, especially two minutes not his fault, hardly warranted an apology. "So, what's up?" he said, as soon as he was seated.
"I might ask you the same thing. And, for the record, I wasn't blaming you for being late. Lately, when Orchard & Company has grabbed people, we usually don't see the grabee for rather a long while. I don't know how you shook loose, but if you didn't spur them to open mutiny, I'd like to congratulate you on a job well done."
Richard shot a look at his wife. Emma looked as suddenly wary as he felt.
"Hmmm," said Richard.
"Of course," continued Stolemaker, "if Mrs. Hugh hadn't been along with you, it's hard to know when or if I'd ever have heard about the little deal. For some reason they're neglecting to let me know when they do investigations."
"Double hmmmm," said Emma.
The three people in the room were of above average intelligence, had extensive experience dealing with all sorts of people, and were veterans of what amounted to intertribal fighting inside the government. They understood that there existed just any number of possible explanations for this sort of behavior on the part of the reviews people. However, none of the probable implications promised to be pleasant.
"All right," said Emma. "I'll play the rude American, since that's my specialty. Do you know or suspect that you, yourself, are under investigation right now, chief?"
The men gulped. It was one of the most important questions in need of consideration at the moment, but it was jarring to just jump into an actual discussion of the issue.
"Not exactly subtle, is she?" Stolemaker said.
"I've learnt the hard way not to assume she'll be unsubtle, if that's of any use," Richard said.
"Hmmmm," said Stolemaker.
"Not fair," said Emma, petulantly. "We've staked out the hmmm-ing grounds in this conversation."
Stolemaker looked at her to see if she was serious. She obviously wasn't. He laughed, and walked over to a small bar at the side of his office.
"Oh, man. I hardly slept last night, worrying how – or whether – to present this project to you two," he said. "Don't know why I bothered. Worrying, I mean. If you can't run rings around people, the pair of you, I don't know who could. Bless you, my children." He started to pour himself a drink, but thought better of it. "Come on, you two. I need to show you something," he said. He escorted them to the outer office. "I don't know how long I'll be gone," he told Darlene.
"Actually, we're kidnapping him," Richard said.
"Or he's kidnapping us, we're not sure which," Emma added, as they swept out.
Darlene shook her head, smiled, and went back to work.
-
"It's five blocks away," Stolemaker said, as he led the Hughs down the hall. "Shall I get a car?"
"The exercise will do me good, unless you're planning on jogging," Emma said.
"I'm counting on you being honest with me, you know," he said.
"Have cane, will travel," she jested. "Honestly, though, five blocks is not a problem these days."
"I would tell you two about where we're going and why – and perhaps I should – but I want fresh impressions. Keep your eyeballs open."
"The geek in me objects," Emma said.
"To what?"
"To the idea that eyeballs can be opened and closed," she said. "Eyes, yes. Eyeballs, I don't think so."
"Point taken," Stolemaker said.
Five blocks from HQ, he led them into a property management office.
"Ah, Mr. Stolemaker! So good to see you again! Did you decide on that little matter we discussed?" a well-dressed man asked. He was clearly fishing for how much information he ought to spill in front of the customer's associates.
"Yes and no," Stolemaker said.
The letting agent waved graciously toward a private office.
"No, thank you, that's all right. There's no need to keep anything about this secret from these two," Stolemaker said. "What I mean is that I'd like to take possession of one of your properties – just not the one we had at the top of the list. I hope the blue-roomed one isn't gone already? Let's see, I have the address noted here somewhere…" He made a good show of looking up the address, even though he had a sizeable bet with himself that he'd never be allowed to rent that property, not least of all because it belonged to an old hand from military intelligence who was rabid about security.
The property man shot a glance toward a lowly secretary's desk, before looking terribly disappointed for Stolemaker's sake. "I'm afraid we've lost that one this round. But you did like the-"
"Well, then, the fifth-floor flat just off the park. That's the only other one that will do, from what I've seen thus far."
The letting agent hesitated, even after getting a small nod from the secretary. Stolemaker wasted no time in handing over a credit card before the man could formulate a fresh objection. "You did say I was pre-approved for something in that range, didn't you?" he said, to clinch the deal.
Richard backed him up by favoring the property man with one of his best 'is this how you treat persons of means?' looks. Emma stayed out of it by looking bored.
The man handed the card to the secretary. "Run this, will you Ms. Williams?" he said. There was a curious lack of certainty in his voice.
The secretary, however, showed a crisp efficiency. She was pale and damp, as if she'd taken an early lunch and gone to a gym instead of a restaurant (and overdone the workout, perhaps), but the prospect of getting Stolemaker set up right away seemed to energize her wonderfully. She grabbed at paperwork and set to the project with admirable zeal.
Nothing seemed streamlined about the process, but Stolemaker eventually took possession of a key, along with 55 pages of documentation rife with acronyms and minutia, supposedly detailing the condition of everything that could be inventoried at that address. Stolemaker took it as a matter of faith that any 55-page document was bound to have accidental errors, if not intentional ones, but he didn't say so.
He led the Hughs outside, where they hailed a taxi. The taxi driver dropped them at Stolemaker's newly acquired rental. The chief and his two agents walked through the front door into the lobby.
"What do you think?" Stolemaker asked quietly.
"I think I'd rather drink bathtub gin laced with cyanide," Richard said.
"Ditto," Emma said.
"My thoughts exactly," said Stolemaker. "Especially since I know the letting agent is part owner, and is seriously strapped for cash at present. That he hesitated about renting to me makes me wonder what he's afraid might happen."
They found a service entrance and snuck out.
"We're house watching my Aunt Enid's cousin's place if that's of any use to you," Richard said. "Thirty to forty minutes away, depending on traffic, etcetera."
"Very funny," Stolemaker said.
"But true. The intricacies of family obligations in my family are mind-boggling at times," Richard said. "It's one of the reasons I signed up for foreign service, if you'd like to know. It's the second most important reason I let the higher-ups rename me Henry Rochester for a while and try to stash me outside of home territory for the duration. I had a naïve theory I could break free of the pack."
"Is he serious?" Stolemaker asked Emma.
"Flippant, but reasonably accurate," she reported. "We're supposed to stop by Colin's place every few days to water the plants and verify that the place hasn't burnt down or been broken into. In return, we have permission to make ourselves at home if, say, we have to call a plumber to redo the kitchen drains and don't want to supervise the disaster scene."
"I declare unnamed pipes clogged. Lead on," Stolemaker said.
"If there are no objections, I think we'll go by bus," Richard said. "Less traceable than taxis, at least in theory."
When the bus they wanted pulled up, the driver flashed the
Hughs a grin that had happy recognition written all over it. So much for traveling around without leaving a trace, Stolemaker thought. But then they switched busses twice, and the third driver didn't so much as bat an eye when he saw them. The chief felt much better.
-
For a trio not used to working as a trio, they managed to cover the securing duties fairly quickly once they got to Colin's. No burglars or other persons hiding in the closets. No microphones in vases or tape dispensers or any of the other usual places. The windows were properly closed. And so on.
They fixed themselves coffee (for the men) and tea (for Emma), scurried up some munchies, and sat down to finally get to business.
"So, what's up?" Emma said.
"Give him a minute. He stayed up half the night rehearsing this, remember?" Richard said.
"That's not precisely what he said, but I'll let it go," she said.
"The truly frightening thing, chief, is that she probably could tell us exactly what you said." He gave her a look that more or less requested that she prove him right.
Emma rolled her eyes. "Oh, man. I hardly slept last night, worrying how – or whether – to present this project to you two. Etcetera," she said, at almost the precise tempo and rhythm of the original. "Now, luv, not to quarrel in front of company…"
"But don't volunteer you for sideshow duty. Sorry. Won't do it again," Richard said. He turned to his boss. "She's getting me trained. It's astonishing, but I can usually guess exactly what sort of trouble I'm in before she can finish explaining it to me," he lied. He tried to affect a doleful, domesticated sigh, but looked too happy to pull it off. He switched tack and rolled his eyes, just ever so briefly, aiming for light-hearted self-deprecation.
Stolemaker surveyed his chosen team, and wished they weren't so likeable. "I hope I'm not going to hate myself for this," he said.
"Meaning that it's dangerous, I suppose," Richard said.
"Meaning that if we don't have actual bloodshed inside headquarters and/or a dead prime minister before this is through, I'm going to believe in miracles again," Stolemaker said. "Fair warning: so far everyone who's tried to dig down to water on this well has wound up out of commission. Dead in some cases. Missing, in others. Or alive but minus body parts people generally don't like to be without. We're dealing with some very nasty people."
"And they have high level access to British intelligence," Emma said.
Stolemaker looked at her, his eyes carefully cloaked.
She shrugged. "We'd hardly be in a distant relative's vacant residence otherwise, would we? Ordinarily you'd feel safest in your own office. By the way, before we go much further, did everyone present remember to disable his tracking devices?"
Both men muttered unhappy words. They dug electronic doodads out of pockets and off their belts.
"I'm too old to keep up with new technology," Richard whimpered.
He got very little sympathy. None, in fact. His companions empathized with the problem, but whimpering about it wasn't going to be indulged.
"Of course, someone knowing where we are and them knowing what we're doing aren't necessarily the same thing," Emma said, not digging, because she'd done her electronic disabling before asking.
"Don't try to make me feel better, luv. It only makes me feel worse," Richard said.
"I hate to admit it, but I'm getting paranoid of late," Stolemaker said. "I'm beginning to imagine assassins outside nearly every window and behind at least half the doors."
Involuntarily, all three looked at the front door. The door itself was heavy steel with a small peephole. Perfectly suitable. Right next to the door, though, was a thin window as tall as the door, frosted for privacy. A trespasser needed but to break some glass, stick his hand through, unlock the door, and waltz in. It was a handsome entrance, and the light through the frosted glass added great ambiance, but the design was incredibly trusting to kind fate.
The chief hated the door, or rather the window that set it off so prettily. He bet himself that the Hughs didn't much like it either, now that they'd thought about it.
A gun handle busted through the glass beside the door. Part of a woman's face appeared. A gun barrel aimed. Several shots rang out. Stolemaker jerked from his chair, sprouted blood, and fell to the floor.
Richard flew to take his wife to the floor, but she'd already leapt to tumble furniture to provide cover for the chief. Unable to overcome his momentum, Richard tucked and rolled halfway across the room. By the time he got Emma in hand, hauled her to cover, double-checked and triple-checked that she was all right, exacted a promise from her that she'd stay behind cover, and scrambled behind a stout umbrella stand near the front door, there was shouting outside.
"Hey! Hey! I've called 999. Ahoy! Are you all right in there? Anybody there?!"
The Good Samaritan frantically reached through the broken window and unlocked the door. He opened the door and peeked cautiously in, showing himself to be an old man, frail but forceful.
"Damnation," he said, "You might have answered if you're able. I didn't know what to expect."
Richard and Emma stared in amazement.
"Percy?" Richard said.
"That's me," the old man said, defensively, like he knew it might be dangerous to identify himself, but was not going to be scared out of it.
"Look, gentlemen, let's sort this out later," Emma said from her position at Stolemaker's side. "I believe we met you a while back, at The Stuffed Pelican. Mr. Terwilliger, isn't it?"
He nodded. He looked pleased to be recognized.
Emma said, "First off, someone busted that window and shot through just before you got here-"
"I heard the whole mess," Percy boasted. "And came running, of course. I-"
"Yes, and thank goodness. And thanks for calling an ambulance, but-"
"Damnation. I was bluffing. Didn't have time. Figured if hooligans were still on the premises, saying I'd called 999 might send them out a back way or something. Cripes. I'll get them now." He lunged for the phone, or did as close to lunging as a frail old man could do.
"No, don't," Stolemaker cried. He dragged himself into a sitting position with Emma's help, fished for credentials, and handed them up to Percy. "Get me out of here without generating any fuss or reports. We haven't time for nonsense," he said.
"At your service, sir!" Percy said, tossing in a salute for good measure. "But I'm going to check you out a bit first. Have the training for it, you know." He struggled to his knees and took a look at the bullet damage. "Ah, you'll be all right, barring infection or bleeding to death, which isn't likely with this damage. The bleeding to death, I mean. Possible with no care, but not likely with. As long as there's some pressure on, you're all right for now. Infection's always a hazard, of course. Longer term, of course," Percy said. He sat back on his heels, pleased that he could tell the proper level of danger and that he could explain it so well.
Richard had rounded up bandages, and Emma was already wrapping a leg by the time Percy finished with his prognosis. She handed bandages across to Percy, who did a fair job of wrapping on his side, with a bit of help from the patient.
"I presume we sneak you to a super secret rendezvous site and turn you over to an ambulance that knows its way to places I don't know about," Percy said, his voice appropriately low.
"Not on your life," Stolemaker wheezed.
"So that's how it is," Percy said. "Commies, is it? Usually is, when it's inside trouble. No, don't tell me. I'm too old for this game. Hate to admit it, but there it is. Do you need a car? Or would you like to hide in my humble abode until someone can come pick you up? Risky that, but you're welcome."
"Car," Richard said.
Percy handed over a set of keys. "Dark blue saloon. Tinted windows. Next door over," he reported. He pointed to clarify which way. "Likely even the cowards around here will be poking their noses out of hiding pretty soon, so you'd best hurry. You're lucky, you know. Most everyone who's not senile yet is at work right now."
&nb
sp; "Did you see which way the shooter went?" Emma asked.
"Saw a blur dive behind the wheel of what looked like a modified racecar and speed off. Don't know if it's your suspect or someone scared off by them. Light car. Silver or some such. Nicer car than you'd expect for a commie assassin, though."
Most proponents of communism that Richard knew were richer than average, and more or less obsessed with status symbols, but it didn't seem a good time to open up the discussion. He looked outside. Not seeing anything truly alarming like silver racecars idling on the curb or gun-toting females half-hidden behind trees, he ducked into the kitchen for one of cousin Colin's infamously ugly waterproof chef's smocks. Garishly shielded from blood, he went over to pick up his supervisor.
He kept himself in pretty good trim but carrying someone the size of the chief was pushing his limits. Percy saw the difficulty, grabbed a leg, and did his best to contribute to the hauling operation. Emma saw the awkwardness of having just one leg held up, and grabbed the other.Finally, having obtained a three-point carry and getting the balance right, they proceeded toward the car.
They were rather more obvious than Richard had intended, but it didn't seem likely he could get rid of his unwanted helpers or hurry them up much. He bit his lip and tried to be stoic about it – and wished he and Stolemaker could magically become invisible. Stolemaker looked like he would have concurred, if asked.
"How d'ya do, Mrs. Buckley," Percy called out to a neighbor working a flowerbed. "Chap just had a bit too much to drink, you know," he extemporized.
Richard nearly had heart failure. He hadn't counted on the civilian taking over producing a cover story.
"But he's bleeding. Isn't he?" Mrs. Buckley protested.
"Broken bottles will do that," Percy pronounced, the very model of a didactic Englishman. "And smashed windows can, too, of course," he added, remembering that the window next to the front door was obviously punched through. "It's not so bad as it looks. They're relatives of Colin, you know. They've promised to pay for all repairs. Needn't worry about that. I'll have everything shipshape before your bridge party. You'll see. I no more want to bring down the reputation of the neighborhood than do you."
Richard decided that a stroke was more likely than heart failure under the circumstances. The helpful civilian was tossing around more than enough details and was getting way too creative and reassuring.
A glance at Emma didn't help. Emma looked to be thinking up a counterstrike if needed. Emma was highly unpredictable with her verbal counterstrikes. She could be just so dreadfully American in a crisis.
"But my bridge ladies will start arriving in three hours, Mr. Terwilliger. Only three hours!" Mrs. Buckley said.
"Guess I need to get cracking then. I'll see to the busted window first. On my honor," Percy said.
"All right, then," Mrs. Buckley said, dubiously. "Only, don't do it again," she fussed, this time in Stolemaker's direction.
"Oh, no, ma'am. We definitely won't do it again," Richard said. He gained sole possession of Stolemaker and moved him onto the back seat of Percy's sedan.
"I don't believe we're getting into this car again," Emma whispered to Richard. She crawled in beside her wounded boss.
"What's that about the car, ma'am?" Percy asked.
"Anything special we need to know about the car?" Richard said, as if repeating something just said. Percy had enthusiastically rescued them after they'd been in a car crash with Leandre Durand, and it didn't seem a good idea to remind him.
"Not a thing," Percy said. "Straight civilian. No modifications, damn the luck – if you'll excuse my French, ma'am? I guess I may've been swearing more than I ought around a lady. Shattering glass and gun noise knocked me off the rails more than I meant for it to, or something. Not that that's an excuse. Forgive me."
"Just don't do it again," Emma said, in a mock fussing voice.
Percy harrumphed, but seemed pleased by the kidding.
"We'll be back when we can," Richard said.
"I'll be here," Percy said, "If old age doesn't claim me first."
"Give our love to Regina," Emma said, by way of a goodbye. Percy looked confused. "Your wife, I mean. Sorry if I got the name wrong. It's been a while."
"No. No. That's all right. It just catches me off guard when I run into someone who doesn't know. Doesn't seem possible that people don't know, you know."
"If she's dead, I'm sorry," Emma said.
"Drink driver, you know," Percy said. "Might've let her die of old age, you know. Would have been decent, especially since she'd got so near to it. It's a bit like being cut off at the knees. Well, off with you. I've things to do. Mrs. Buckley's bridge ladies will be here soon enough."
As they drove away, they heard Mrs. Buckley explaining things, after a fashion, to a neighbor who'd just come on scene. Mrs. Buckley pitched her voice so the miscreants could hear her. "Yes, young Colin is all right as far as that goes. But some of his relatives ought to be ashamed of themselves."
"I am ashamed of myself, actually," Richard said as they pulled out of sight. "I rather badly underestimated Ms. Williams of the real estate office, and that after seeing how alarmed she was to see us all together, thick as thieves."
"I was going to ask about that," Emma said. "But somehow I didn't get a chance before the ruckus started. There did seem to be some sort of high concern about Stolemaker's plans. I'd love to go bug chasing in the place they wanted him to rent. Silly me. There's probably nothing there, and I'm just getting paranoid."
"Last time I checked the dictionary, luv, it still said that paranoia was an unreasonable and unwarranted fear. Imaginary troubles, you know. Nothing imaginary about our Ms. Williams's cruel intentions against our chief, I'd say. How's he doing, by the way?"
"I'm well enough to talk for myself yet, thank you," Stolemaker said. "And certainly it seems likely that Ms. Williams is the real power in that office, and the real threat. But I certainly didn't anticipate she could mobilize her forces, whatever they are, on a moment's notice. Or that they'd bother coming after me like this, for pity's sake."
"Richard? Did you get a look at the woman who shot the chief?" Emma asked.
"Thought I did."
"So did I, or I thought I did. Not to plant any ideas in your head, but I was certain at the time that it was our Ms. Williams."
"That's what I thought," Richard confirmed.
Stolemaker swore.
"I agree with the sentiment, but I do object to profanity in the presence of my wife, sir," Richard said. "Perhaps you could do that under your breath next time?"
"Quite right. But excuse me while I hate myself. Of all the boneheaded moves to make. I thought I was keying you in on a mid-level operative who might lead us to a high-level operative."
"That might still be the case," Emma said. "Some mid-levels are awfully independent. Or she might have had standing orders to move if things got too hot. Or she might have called in somewhere for quick authorization. Speaking of phones and stuff, did we get everything turned off? I can't remember. And I'd hate to be providing location signals to somebody. Silly me."
Richard held his phone against the steering wheel as he drove, and fiddled with buttons. "I hate to say this, but I can't remember how to disable the tracking device on this phone," he said. "I might have got it. But I'm not sure."
He handed it back to Emma.
"Honestly, luv, I don't know. It's not the same model as mine," she said.
Stolemaker looked at it. "Doesn't look like mine, either. Darned if I know," he said.
"Hand it back," Richard said. He contemplated it. "Oh rot," he said. "You both have phones we can figure out, don't you?" With that he punched a destroy data sequence on the keypad (he did remember that much), rolled down the window and launched his phone into a pile of litter.
"I'm trying to remember," Stolemaker said. "Is it you or Barlow amongst my agents who have been issued the most replacement phones to date?"
"I didn't realize I was in content
ion, sir. Really," Richard said. "Take it out of my paycheck, if you like."
"Do you hate mobile phones, or what?" Stolemaker asked.
"It depends on the situation, sir. Honestly."
A few minutes later, Emma glanced up from tending Stolemaker's injuries, to see that they were in a rundown industrial section. She didn't like the looks they were getting from young men who seemed to be on sentry duty while leaning against a graffiti-covered wall. The pockmarks in the wall suggested rather high power firearms let loose once in a while. "Do you have a destination in mind?" she asked Richard.
"I'm not lost if that's what you mean," he said.
"He's lost, isn't he," Stolemaker whispered to Emma.
"I'd only be guessing on that, sir," she whispered back.
To Richard she said, "I think Percy was probably right. I don't think the chief's wounds are life threatening per se. But I'd just as soon get him stashed somewhere while we regroup, and preferably somewhere with nursing experience. I'm assuming we regroup, considering that Ms. Williams also works for the agency – she does work for the agency and I've not got her confused with someone else?"
Stolemaker nodded. "Not our department, but down the hall, all right. The property agent's job is supposed to be a cover job. If I remember correctly, she found it herself. Don't quote me on that. At any rate, I got vibes early on that the woman was working at cross purposes to me, but I'm still not sure why, or on who's say-so, or how alone she is on this."
"Well, then, I think we need to be very careful who we trust for the moment," Emma said. "And feel free to accuse me of understatement on that. I assume the Prime Minister's on our side, and hopefully he knows that we're on his. But past that, we're going to have to be sneaky, aren't we?"
"You're forgetting something, darling," Richard said. "Our chief was worried about assassination attempts against the Prime Minister, meaning we'll have to be speedy as well as sneaky, if we want to be able to face ourselves."
Stolemaker took this as a cue. He phoned the PM to say that matters had blown up rather alarmingly. He held back or muffled some of the details, considering that the entire world seemed compromised at the moment. He did specify that agents 0005 and 2347 were on the case, and were believed to be on the proper side of the conflict.
It was hardly a glowing recommendation, but Richard didn't blame his boss for an abundance of caution. He wasn't sure himself which individuals he trusted just now. A glance at Emma told him that she wasn't feeling warm and fuzzy, either.
After Stolemaker rang off, Richard bit back a rascally urge to suggest that they sing songs from the 1960s about everybody in the whole world becoming one big happy family if only everyone thought happy thoughts. There were a thousand and one reasons not to sing such songs under the circumstances. But a joke seemed in order, or at least something to break the tension, and 1960s utopian ditties were real screamers if presented with the proper amount of reined-in sarcasm.
Richard looked in the mirror and his wife met his gaze. Emma rarely asked for anything, and then she usually didn't ask for much, but her eyes this time were deeply troubled. Whether that was from tending a wounded friend, or worrying about being lost (he was fairly sure she was afraid they were lost), he didn't know and didn't ask. He stepped a bit harder on the accelerator. He looked in the mirror again. She seemed to like that he was speeding up a wee bit. Now, if only he could get his mind to come up with something useful in the way of a destination. It was no good hurrying if you were only milling about. But where in the world did you go when people in your own organization were gunning down the fellows above you? Especially when your organization was supposed to be in the upper echelons of law enforcement, for crying out loud? "Chief, if I made a suggestion do you think you could not ask too many questions? Gift horse teeth stuff, you understand," he said.
"Gift horse teeth stuff?"
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, you know."
"You might have said so. I'm not necessarily at my sharpest on untangling half-quotes right after I've been shot."
"Funny you should mention being shot. It's why I've thought of this particular gift horse. Um. Well. Hey! Now we're back to where I… where I... I mean, how nice that they've completed the road works project around here and a man can follow his usual route."
"Hallelujah we're not lost anymore, in other words," Stolemaker said.
"Well, yes. It's not like a man can have all of England memorized, and to be honest I hadn't realized how much I used those navigational maps stuck into our dashboards. It's silly, really, how quickly a man gets dependent on items he's never needed before. But not to worry. I am in familiar terrain and even know (he absent-mindedly rapped his knuckles on the dash) where I'm going. If we go there."
"To the gift horse, I hope," Stolemaker said.
"Here's the deal," Richard said. "The man's perfect. He's a doctor, a good one, but if our going there is going to wind up with him being arrested or anything, I won't do it. The man's as honest and law abiding as the day is long. At heart anyway."
"Is this making any sense to you?" Stolemaker asked Emma.
"I'm afraid it is. Richard's long had a fond regard for a man who bailed out of a medical practice after getting punch-drunk on regulations, not to mention being told he had to perform abortions to keep his affiliation. He couldn't play along. Absolutely couldn't murder babies and wound the mothers for life."
"But, he could have worked round that somehow, surely," Stolemaker said. "I'm not familiar with that branch of law particularly, but there must have been some religious exemptions or something."
"Exemptions must needs be granted, and this surgery wasn't having any," Richard said. "And this man wasn't having any either. It rather shattered his faith in humanity to be asked to beg permission not to rip and flush live people out of the shelter of their first home."
"I think I'm getting the picture," Stolemaker said. "And so far I can't see where I'd have to report the man. Is there any likely reason that I'd have to report the man? Without giving any details."
"Well, yes and no. He's thrown over having a medical practice, you understand. And he's given up sharing what he considers confidential information with anyone, especially civil servants who've voted themselves onto medical teams without asking the doctor's or the patient's consent. But sometimes people ask him for advice, and he's a compassionate soul with useful knowledge and experience."
"I've got far bigger worries than defrocked doctors helping neighbors as the need arises," Stolemaker said.
"Will you remember that when times get better, I guess is the question," Emma said.
Stolemaker laughed, or tried to, until the pain stopped him. "You two are priceless. You've practically admitted to sheltering a criminal-"
"He wouldn't be if the laws were fair and protected decent people," Emma cut in.
"All right," Stolemaker said. "Point taken, but you've practically admitted to conducting activities unbecoming a government officer, possibly worthy of courts-martial, and you're worried about the poor fellow you've not even named yet. Do me a favor, will you two?"
"What's that, chief?" Richard asked.
"Let me know ahead of time if you think you'd rather commit treason than follow one of my orders, will you? Honest, we're on the same side, and I assure you I'll never ask you to go against your oh-so-healthy consciences if I can help it."
"Considering that we aren't ever supposed to take you to regular hospital, and don't dare take you to a secure one until we've sussed out who's doing the securing these days, does that constitute a request to be taken to this other fellow?"
"Yes, please. The bleeding seems to have stopped, but the pain is getting worse."
"Enough said," Richard said.
"I just had a nasty thought," Emma said.
"Good nasty or bad nasty?" her husband teased from the front seat. He tossed a suggestive look at her via the rearview mirror.
"Richard!"
"Sorry, luv. What was
your thought?"
"Wasn't it Ms. Williams her very own self who took the chief's credit card and processed it?"
"Yes-s-s," both men said, drawing the word out as all sorts of implications began to dawn.
"Well," said Emma, "I'm not a whiz on modern technology, so maybe I'm worrying for nothing. But besides now having the wherewithal to misuse funds, or cut him off without a sou by making the card look stolen, doesn't she also now have ways, if she's tied in with the right wrong people, to track his expenditures? And aren't there little devices that can be stuck on credit cards that are good for the sticker but not for the stickee?"
Stolemaker, with Emma's help, dug out the credit card. It had a new-looking little patch on it that he hadn't noticed before. The patch seemed quite permanently stuck.
"I've got cash, and cards drawing off hidden bank accounts not in jolly old England, if we get reduced to that," Richard put in.
"I'm finding out more about you than perhaps I like to know," Stolemaker said. He handed the card to Emma. "Destroy this," he ordered.
She handed the card forward to Richard, who automatically started looking for a shredder or other helpful accessory that might do the trick. He caught himself, remembering that he was borrowing Percy Terwilliger's car – straight civilian, no modifications.
"Sorry, luv. I couldn't resist," Emma said.
"That, sir, was a snide reference to a mistake I made before we were married. I tried to shred credentials with a device designed to drop knotted nails on the pavement. Perhaps we could skip further details," Richard said. He looked at Emma via the mirror. "Sometimes I wonder why you consented to marry me, after the blunders I made there at the first."
"Surely you don't expect me to hold it against you for being human?" she said.
"Speaking of being human, in the sense of shortcomings and failings, and forgiving and forgetting, or not forgiving as the case might be," Stolemaker said, "Durand's Castelneau and I went to university together, and got to know each other at Communist Party meetings. I wish I could say I was there undercover, but I wasn't. Neither was he. When I quit the Party, he orchestrated a burglary at my flat to teach me a lesson. As you might expect, I didn't learn the lesson he wanted me to."
"I think I'll let you handle this one, Richard," Emma said.
"Gee, thanks," he said.