Shoot Him If He Runs (Stone Barrington 14)

Pepper looked and found the door. “Yes, Colonel.”

“Go and open the door and look into the next room.”

“As you wish, Colonel.” Pepper got up, walked to the door and opened it. A trickle of fear ran down his bowels. The room was smaller than the office in which he had been sitting, but it was better equipped; it contained a heavy wooden chair bolted to the floor and equipped with thick leather straps for restricting the movement of whoever might sit in it.

Next to the chair was a large table on which were arrayed a variety of knives, pliers and other hardware that might be used for other than their original purpose.

On the other side of the chair, resting on two sawhorses, was a freshly constructed wooden coffin, with its lid lying on the floor next to it.

Pepper closed the door and returned to his chair.

“Now,” Colonel Croft said, “let us begin again.”

33

Lance Cabot was waiting in the director’s reception area when she arrived at work at 8 A.M. He felt awful, having been up all night, and he was anxious about this meeting.

Kate Lee regarded him closely. “Something wrong, Lance?” she asked.

“May I speak with you in your office, Director?”

“Of course; come in.” She led the way into her inner office and hung her coat in a closet. “Have a seat.” She waved him toward her desk.

Lance took a chair across the desk from her, noting the difference from other meetings, when they sat in the more informal cluster of sofas and chairs across the room. “Sometime yesterday, probably in the afternoon, Bill Pepper was taken from his office by the police on St. Marks. Later in the day, police also took his wife, who is also our operative, from their home.”

“Is there anything in either Bill’s office or home that might compromise his situation?”

“I very much doubt it; he would have followed procedure.”

“Where is he now?”

“Apparently, still in the Markstown jail. The legendary Colonel Croft is also there, and I think we must presume that he has questioned or is questioning Bill and Annie.”

“And, as I recall, his interrogation techniques were learned and refined in latter-day Haiti.”

“That is correct.”

“Do we know the reason for their detention?”

“Not yet. We were fortunate that our man in the embassy there was also the duty officer last night, so we have not yet involved the ambassador.” He glanced at his watch. “That will become necessary later this morning.”

“Do we know if Colonel Croft has made any connection between Pepper and Holly Barker’s group?”

“No, but I very much doubt it.”

“I should have thought that Colonel Croft’s interrogation practices might have produced that information by now.”

“Jim Tiptree, the Agency man at the embassy, first telephoned Colonel Croft, then visited the jail, demanding to see him. He is still there, waiting. I think his presence might have had a dampening effect on the colonel’s urges.”

“You must have some idea why the Peppers were detained. What was Bill’s most recent assignment? From you, I mean; not from Hugh English.”

“He was to go into the St. Marks government computers and get copies of the applications to purchase a residence of three men we suspect of possibly being Teddy Fay-Robertson, Pemberton and Weatherby.”

“You suspect three men of being Teddy?”

“Possibly.”

“As I recall, Bill has made St. Marks government computers his playground over the past few months. How would he get caught now?”