“I spent most of my time at the English Harbour Inn, near the harbor, run by a retired NYPD cop named Thomas Hardy, who was born and raised on St. Marks.”
Dino spoke up. “I met him a couple of times on the job, years ago.”
“Right. He’s a good guy; I think we should stay there, if he has room.”
“You’ve already been booked into a cottage there,” Lance said. “The four of you. Who else did you know?”
“An elderly barrister named Leslie Hewitt was assigned to work with me on the trial; he may be dead by now.”
“He is not,” Lance said.
“And there was Sir Winston Sutherland, the minister of justice on the island, who decided to prosecute the case himself.”
“Sutherland is now prime minister,” Lance said, “so you know people in high places.”
“Sir Winston would have a poor opinion of me,” Stone said, “since I made him look bad a number of times during the trial, and since I cast him as the villain in the considerable publicity we managed to generate, in an attempt to save my client’s neck.”
“Duly noted,” Lance said. “You should make a point of not running afoul of the law in St. Marks, partly because of Stone’s unsatisfactory relationship with Sir Winston and partly because, as prime minister, he has run the island in a more authoritarian manner than the previous administration did. Questions?”
“Why does Holly have red hair?” Stone asked.
Lance smiled. “I think I told you that Holly has seen Teddy Fay twice, although he was heavily disguised, but that means that he has also seen her twice, so I thought that a change of appearance was a good idea, and a change of identity, too. Teddy may still have computer access to the Agency mainframe computer, and he probably read Holly’s personnel file at the time he met her. She is taking the identity of Virginia Heller, her father’s girlfriend, whom you met on Islesboro.”
“Why Ginny?”
“Because it’s faster than creating a legend for Holly. Since Ginny is a real person, she can be researched by Teddy. We’ve changed the photographs on Ginny’s website and substituted Holly’s-Ginny runs a flying school in Florida-and in the Florida driver’s license database and the U.S. Passport database. This should hold up, because should Teddy become suspicious of her, he doesn’t have any resources on the mainland to investigate Ginny. He’ll have to be content with electronic investigation. Any other questions?”
Dino spoke up. “What do we do when we get to St. Marks?”
“Find Irene Foster, and go from there. You should know, Dino-all of you-that this is not an official Agency operation; it’s purely a seat-of-the-pants thing to learn whether Teddy Fay still exists. It’s being paid for through a front travel agency operated by the Agency, and the funds will be untraceable. Just be who you are when you get there, except for Holly, who will be Ginny. Any other questions? No? Then I’ll give you some basic info on St. Marks.”
Lance set up a large laptop computer and began displaying maps of the island and photographs of the terrain. “The island is made up of a central, dormant volcano, known as Black Mountain, surrounded by tropical forest and fine beaches. St. Marks is a former British possession that gained its independence about twelve years ago. Since that time, one political party has held power, and Sir Winston is only the second prime minister. It is, ostensibly, a parliamentary democracy, although Sir Winston, as previously noted, wields more personal power than most elected officials.
“The government is stable and the island safe for tourists. Ninety percent of the population is black, as are all the people Stone knows there; the rest are mostly descendants of the former British settlers, whose accents are British. There are a few dozen expatriates who’ve bought homes there because of the stable political atmosphere and the moderate real estate prices.”
“So finding Irene Foster shouldn’t be hard?” Stone asked.
“No,” Lance replied.
“Why did she leave St. Barts for St. Marks? I mean, the real estate prices on St. Barts would have been higher, but she already owned a property there. What made her move?”
“We investigated her existence in St. Barts thoroughly, before she left the island. What we picked up was that she didn’t speak any French, which is the local language, and she preferred an English-speaking island. Also, she got an unsolicited offer for her house, and she jumped at the chance to move. Incidentally, before she moved, we had a close look at the inside of her house, and we found no indication of a co-habitor-only one toothbrush, et cetera. She had a local reputation for picking up suitable men at local bars and having them over for a night or two-always tourists, who would be leaving in a few days. From that, we deduced that she was not being sexually satisfied by a regular lover-i.e., Teddy.” Lance looked at his watch. “You have a flight from Manassas, Virginia, in three hours, and you have to get packed. Any other questions?”
Stone spoke up. “What do we do if we find Teddy Fay?”
Lance closed his laptop, put it into his briefcase and closed it. “Holly will inform me, then you will all go home.”
“And what will happen to Teddy?” Stone asked.
Lance stood up and walked to the door. “You needn’t concern yourself with that,” he said. “Have a nice trip.” He walked out and closed the door behind him.
5
When they got out of their car at Manassas Airport, Lance was waiting for them, standing beside a small jet.
“Is that the new Swearingen J-30?” Stone asked.
“It is,” Lance replied.