“Hockey! Play hockey!” Jonah grabbed a miniature hockey stick and swiped the floor. “Play hockey.”
“Eddie’s got him on skates already.”
“He can skate?” Exley’s surprise was genuine.
“Play hockey play hockey—”
“You’d be amazed.” Kellie grabbed the boy’s hand. “Jonah, come on downstairs to the kitchen with us. You can play down there.”
“Can I have juice?”
“Of course, sweetie.”
They walked back to the downstairs, which was festooned with pictures of Kellie and Edmund on their honeymoon in Hawaii, Kellie and Edmund and Jonah at the rink, the kid cute as anything with his helmet and stick and skates… Edmund Cerys wasn’t the mole, Exley thought. Not even an Oscar-winning actor could fake the way he looked at his wife in these pictures. He’d gotten drunk at a Redskins game and picked up a misdemeanor for pissing in the parking lot, but he wasn’t spying for the Chinese or anyone else. Zero for one.
SHE SETTLED INTO THE KITCHEN and prepared to let Kellie tell her about the neighborhood. Then her cell phone trilled in her purse. Wells.
“Hi,” he said. “I have a favor to ask. Can you come up to New York? Today?”
21
EVEN AT 2:50 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY MORNING, East Hampton glowed with wealth. Wall Street skyscrapers, Hollywood back lots, Siberian oil fields — wherever the money came from, it ended up here, waves of cash crashing in like the Atlantic Ocean’s low breakers. Under the streetlamps, the town’s long main street shined empty and clean. The mannequins in the Polo store cradled their tennis racquets, poised to play in their $300 nylon windbreakers. To the north, toward the bay, the houses cost a mere seven figures. South, in the golden half-mile strip between the main street and the ocean, the mansions ran $10 million and up.
Wells and Exley were heading south.
Wells cruised at twenty-five miles an hour on his big black bike, its engine running smooth and quiet. Before him, the traffic light at the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane turned red. He eased to a stop and patted the CB1000’s metal flank. The bike was his, but the license plate wasn’t. He’d liberated it from a Vespa scooter a few hours earlier. He’d also removed all the identifying decals on the bike, making it as anonymous as a motorcycle could be.
Exley stopped beside him at the wheel of a gray Toyota Sienna minivan that Wells had hot-wired from a parking lot at a bar in Southampton ninety minutes before. The minivan’s owner — the “World’s Hottest Single Aunt,” at least according to the sticker on the van’s back bumper — was presumably still getting liquored up inside. By the time she discovered the Sienna was gone, it would have served its purpose. Wells hoped she had insurance.
The light dropped green. Wells eased past the forty-foot-high wooden windmill that marked the end of the town center. A half-mile later, he turned off Route 27 and onto Amity Lane. Besides his standard riding gear of black leather jacket, black helmet, black gloves, and black boots, Wells had on black jeans and a black long-sleeve cotton shirt. He wished he had a pair of black skivvies to complete the package. Tucked in a shoulder holster, he carried a pistol, a Glock this time instead of the Makarov. It was black, naturally, with a silencer threaded to the barrel. He hoped he wouldn’t even have to draw it. His black backpack held two other weapons, the ones he planned to use.
THE AFTERNOON BEFORE, Wells had for the first time found a way to take advantage of the fame he didn’t want. He walked into the East Hampton village police station, an unassuming brick building on Cedar Street, just behind the center of town.
“Can I help you?” the cop behind the counter said.
“I’d like to speak to the chief.”
“He’s busy. What can I do for you?”
Wells extracted his CIA identification card, the one with his real name, and passed it across the counter.
“Hold on.” The officer disappeared behind a steel door, popping out a minute later to wave Wells in.
The chief was a trim man in his early fifties with tight no-nonsense eyes. Even in East Hampton the cops looked like cops. “Ed Graften,” he said, extending his hand. “It’s an honor, Mr. Wells. Please sit.”
“Please call me John.” Wells was beginning to feel foolish. Did he really expect this man to help him?
“What can I do you for? Don’t suppose you locked your keys in your Ferrari or the brats in the mansion next door are making too much noise. The usual nonsense.”
“Chief — I have a favor to ask. The name Pierre Kowalski ring a bell?”
“Course. His daughter Anna set a record this year for a summer rental. If the papers were right, it was a million and a half bucks for the house.” Wells had seen the same stories. Anna had spent $1.5 million on a seven-bedroom mansion on Two Mile Hollow Road, just off the ocean. Not to buy the place. To rent it. For three months.
“Nice to have the world’s biggest arms dealer for your dad,” Wells said. “I have it on good authority ”—in fact, Wells had seen the report in two gossip columns—“ that he is in town this week. I’d like to talk to him. Alone.”
Graften was no longer smiling. “Mr. Wells. Are you sure you are who you say you are? If not, now would be a good time to leave.”
“I am, and I can prove it.”
“Then… I guess I could put a patrol car out front of his gate. I’m sure his driver speeds. They all do. We could stop him, bring him in here. But his lawyers would be on us in two minutes and we’d have to cut him loose—”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble. All I need is—” Wells paused, then plunged on. “If you pick up an alarm from his house tonight, take your time getting there. I won’t hurt him, I promise. Or take anything.” Except information, Wells didn’t say.
“What about his guards?”
“I can take care of them. But I’d rather keep your men out of it.” Wells didn’t mention Exley’s role in his plan.
“Don’t suppose you can tell me what you want from him.”
“Let’s just say I don’t expect him to file a complaint with you about my visit.”
“You can’t do this officially, Mr. Wells?”
“I wish I could.” The CIA couldn’t legally operate in the United States. Wells would have to ask the FBI to try to get a warrant for Kowalski. And Wells doubted that any federal judge would sign a warrant based on the secret testimony of a single Russian special forces commando now in prison in Afghanistan. Even if they could find a friendly judge, Kowalski’s lawyers would fight them for months. They’d never even get him in for an interview.
Trying to move against Kowalski in Monte Carlo or Zurich, where he spent most of his time, would be equally impossible. His homes there were fortresses, much better protected than this vacation house, and the local police would hardly look kindly on a request like this from Wells. No, tonight was his best shot. Maybe his only shot. In any case, Wells didn’t care about arresting Kowalski. He just wanted to know where the trail led.
Graften sighed. “How long do you need?”
“Half an hour maybe.”
“You won’t hurt him.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Graften looked at the ceiling. “All right. If you can prove you are who you say you are, I’ll get you a half-hour. No more. At three A.M., let’s say.”
“Then let me do that.”
IT WAS 2:55 A.M. Wells rolled down Further Lane, Exley following. Heavy green hedges hemmed in the road on both sides. The hedges weren’t ornamental. Twenty feet tall and too thick for anyone to see past, much less walk through, they served as walls protecting the mansions behind them. Every couple of hundred feet, the hedges parted for gated driveways. The homes behind the gates were lit up in the night like cathedrals in the Church of Wealth.