It had taken all his will to keep from raising his voice.
Procter looked at him sympathetically. ‘Not let it go, hand it over. You’ve done everything you can.’
‘Sir, I still think I can be involved without anyone knowing. We can-’
Procter moved away from the fence and pointed his key fob at his car. ‘My mind’s made up, Antonio.’ He took a few steps before turning around. ‘Get me hard copies of everything you have and drop them off at my office Monday morning. Destroy your own copies. That’s an order.’
Alvarez took an almighty calming breath.
In the field the quarter horses were running. Procter watched them for a moment before looking back at Alvarez.
‘Go home,’ the big guy said. ‘Go home and get some sleep.’
Alvarez’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel of his Dodge sedan. His eyes stared ahead, seeing the road, the traffic, but focused on a point far away. His nostrils flared with each big, regular exhale. The anger inside him made his heart thump hard. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been driving, an hour at least, maybe two. He didn’t know where he was heading but he was going nowhere. He passed the same landmarks, took the same intersections, circling the countryside so he could talk — try to talk — himself out of doing something stupid.
But it wasn’t working. The more he thought, the angrier he got, until he made a right where he’d taken a left three times before, and twenty minutes later he was slowing down to drive past the big colonial house where a certain traitorous a-hole made his home. It was a nice place, that much was obvious, and Alvarez wondered how much had been paid for by dollars other than Uncle Sam’s. Ferguson was home, judging by the two cars on the drive.
Alvarez pulled up on the opposite side of the road a couple of houses along. He turned off the engine and adjusted his mirrors so he could see Ferguson’s driveway. He checked his watch, figuring he wouldn’t have to wait long.
If he’d been anywhere else he’d be asleep by now, but anger, adrenaline, and determination kept the tiredness from taking hold. It happened ten minutes later, one guy in a tan-coloured Ford. He pulled up on the same side of the road as Alvarez, two properties along, the other way back from Ferguson’s. Through his mirrors Alvarez watched the guy adjusting his own mirrors.
Good. Alvarez had been worried Procter wouldn’t act soon enough, but he’d made a call and got someone watching Ferguson pretty damn quick. Very good. Now it would be impossible for Alvarez to kick Ferguson’s door down and threaten to plug the old fuck if he didn’t come clean.
Alvarez gave it a minute or two before starting up the engine. He saw the guy in the tan Ford register him and expected a note would be made. Procter would probably give him crap about it when he found out, but Alvarez had been forced to eat enough crap today that some more would just seem like dessert.
He headed for DC, a little above the speed limit, and reached his destination in good time. Again he pulled up on the opposite side of the road and used his mirrors to watch the building. Sykes was on the third floor of the plush brownstone that was a good way above what he should be able to afford. Alvarez knew that Sykes’s parents were wealthy, so he wasn’t about to jump the gun and assume the guy was rotten just because of where he lived.
Cars came and went, but Alvarez didn’t see any surveillance. That figured. It cost a lot to watch people, especially agency people, and Ferguson was the suspect, not Sykes. But Alvarez was convinced that if this whole thing was a rogue op run by Ferguson, he sure as hell wasn’t running it alone.
Ferguson was too thorough and too careful to have gotten his hands dirty personally. There had to be a conduit between him and the assets on the ground. If it wasn’t Sykes, then Alvarez was going to have to look elsewhere, but if it was Sykes, then Alvarez was working a lead just sitting in his car. Procter had told him to keep off Ferguson. He hadn’t said anything about Sykes.
After an hour Alvarez was starting to need to piss something bad, but ten minutes later he’d forgotten about his bladder entirely. Sykes was coming out of the building’s front door. He was carrying a suitcase and looked in a hurry. Alvarez sat up in his seat, watching Sykes intently as he hailed a taxi, starting the engine as one pulled up, putting the Dodge in gear as Sykes climbed in.
The taxi was easy to follow. Alvarez hung back two cars, quickly realizing that it was heading for Dulles. Maybe Sykes was going overseas, somewhere sunny on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
Alvarez took out his cell phone and cycled through his numbers until he found the name he was looking for. He hit dial, switched the phone to speaker, and put it in his lap so he could get both hands back on the wheel.
After seven rings a man answered. ‘Yeah?’
‘Joe, it’s Antonio. I need a favour, fast.’
‘Man, I’m only a Fed on weekdays. I’m at the park with my kid. Can’t it wait?’
‘Would I be calling if it could?’
A pause. ‘Okay, what can I do?’
‘I need you to check credit-card transactions in the name of Kevin Sykes.’ He gave Sykes’s address.
‘What am I looking for?’
‘He’s bought an airline ticket, and I need to know where he’s going.’
‘How long have I got?’
‘He’s on the way to the airport now, so not long.’
‘My wife is giving me dirty looks. I’m not going to get any tonight.’
‘Spare me the details. Just hurry, please. It’s important.’
‘I’ll phone the office now.’
Alvarez thanked him and hung up. His phone rang after eleven minutes.
‘Okay, your friend Mr Sykes used his AmEx to buy a round trip from Dulles to Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, by way of Paris and Amsterdam. Air France leaving at eleven fifteen. That’s a twentyfour-hour flight. And I figured if you wanted to know where he’s flying to, you’ll want to know where he’s going when he gets there.’
‘Yeah. Where?’
‘Some city in Tanzania, Tanga. It’s on the coast. He’s booked himself a room at a hotel there.’
‘How the hell do you know that?’
‘Same way I know about his flight. His credit card.’
‘Shit, I didn’t even think.’
‘Well, you sound tired.’
‘I am.’
‘There you go then. Plus, you never were very smart to begin with.’
A few seconds later Alvarez was calling the airport. He couldn’t risk taking the same flight as Sykes, even if the two had only met a couple of times in person. Alvarez learned that the next Air France flight left six hours later, which would give Sykes too much of a head start. He also learned that a Northwest flight leaving an hour after Sykes could get him direct to Amsterdam in time to join the same flight down to Tanzania. It was also cheaper.
Surprised but pleased, Alvarez gave his credit-card details to the operator without hesitation. If Sykes was going to Tanzania, it could be for only one reason.
He knew where the missiles were.
CHAPTER 69
Eighty Miles East of Tanga, Tanzania
Monday
12:27 EAT
Sykes squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun. He stood on the deck of the commercial salvage vessel hired by Dalweg and Wiechman. The pair were former Navy SEALs who ran their own diving-and-salvage company based a few hundred miles up the coast in Kenya. They didn’t have the greatest of service records before leaving their respective teams, Dalweg in particular. He’d left the navy with a dishonourable discharge for beating a prostitute so bad she almost died. But the retired special-forces guys had been used by the company before on deniable operations and knew how to keep their mouths shut.