“A-a-agent Savano?”
Chevie was halfway through dialing a number. “In a second, kid.”
Riley touched her arm with one finger, and Chevie could feel it tap-tapping with fear.
“It ain’t the Martians, miss, is it? Like in Mr. Wells’s new story, War of the Worlds?”
Chevie followed the boy’s troubled gaze and saw the silhouette of a passenger plane overhead.
“Don’t worry, kid. It’s just Ryanair, not aliens, though it’s a reasonable assumption. I think I’d better get you off the street before your head explodes.”
“Oh my God. A person’s head is likely to explode these days? Is it heat rays? I need a brandy, miss, upon my life.”
Chevie punched the last three numbers into her keypad. “You don’t need a brandy, Riley, you need an outhouse.”
“You are not in the wrong there,” agreed the boy. “It seems like a hundred years since I last went.”
Chevie held the phone to her ear. “Not that kind of outhouse.”
The FBI had several safe houses, apartments, and hotel rooms spread across London in case one of their agents got into hot water during an operation and needed a place to lie low and wait for the cavalry to gallop across from the U.S. embassy.
These safe houses were officially known as secure facilities, but the agents had referred to them as outhouses (out as in Officer Under Threat) since the term was popularized by a seventies spy series Double Trouble, starring the English actor Sir Olivier Gamgud and his faithful Yorkshire terrier.
The closest outhouse to Chevie’s location was a suite in the Garden Hotel, an understated boutique hotel on Monmouth Street where movie stars and models could be found enjoying the famous breakfast on any given morning. Bureau rumor had it that the section chief chose the Garden because of its proximity to the Monmouth Coffee Company café, which served arguably the best espresso outside São Paulo.
Chevie called the desk and asked for Waldo.
“Hello, this is Waldo,” said a deep voice. “How can I help you?”
Chevie spoke slowly, sticking to the code. Waldo was a notorious stickler for protocol and would hang up if she strayed from the correct wording.
“I would like to speak with my Uncle Sam, Waldo,” she said. “He’s in room one-seven-seven-six.”
Waldo was silent for so long that Chevie thought he might have disconnected.
“I’m sorry. What room did you say your Uncle Sam was in?”
Chevie fumed, and silently vowed to kick Waldo really hard somewhere soft at a later date. “I’m sorry, Waldo. My Uncle Sam is in room seventeen seventy-six.”
Another pause, but this time Chevie could hear a keyboard being tapped. “And what did you say your name was, miss?”
“My name is Chevron, but Uncle Sam has always called me . . .” Chevie crossed two fingers, hoping she had the right code name for today. “Spiderwick.”
“Spiderwick. Yes, I do have you on the visitors list.”
“Good. Great.”
“Your Uncle Sam is not in residence at the moment. Perhaps you would like to wait for him in the suite?”
“I would like to wait. We both would.”
More tapping. “Ah . . . both. The hotel has excellent facilities; would you care to make use of them while you are waiting?”
Chevie looked at Riley. “I think a wardrobe and some first aid are definitely needed.”
“Very good, Spiderwick. How soon can we expect you?”
Chevie checked the street. “ETA two minutes, Waldo.”
Waldo hung up without another word. He only had two minutes; there was no time for chitchat.
• • •
The cab pulled up outside the Garden Hotel slightly more than three minutes later and disgorged a very unlikely couple onto Monmouth Street.
One seventeen-year-old FBI agent in Lycra, and an assassin’s apprentice from the nineteenth century, thought Chevie. We must be quite a sight. At least both of my eyes are open now.
Monmouth Street itself was quiet, in spite of its proximity to Covent Garden, with only a few tourists cutting through to Seven Dials or Leicester Square and the faint echo of carnival music. Most of the street was fenced off for street repairs, and the taxi driver was forced to reverse and go out the same way he had come in.
The Garden Hotel was one of those establishments that prided itself on the discretion it guaranteed its very select clientele. There was no sign, no doorman in a top hat, and only a tasteful awning to show taxi drivers where to stop. Chevie had stayed here once before, when Orange had commandeered her apartment during a routine pod service, and she had treated herself to a massage that had worked out muscle pains she’d suffered from overstrenuous workouts.
Chevie tucked her holstered Glock under her arm and hustled Riley into the lobby before he had time to throw up again. Special Agent Waldo Gunn was waiting for them by the reception desk.
“Two minutes?” he said testily. “That was closer to four.” Waldo was not anybody’s idea of an FBI operative, which was probably why he had survived so long in his semi-undercover capacity as liaison at the Garden. Waldo stood five feet four in Cuban heels and had a bushy gray beard that made him seem about a thousand years old, a look that had earned him the nickname Gimli in the Bureau. If Waldo was aware of this nickname, he was not sufficiently bothered by it to invest in a razor.
“Hey, Waldo,” said Chevie. “What’s up?” Waldo scowled. “What’s up, Agent Savano? What’s up is that you should have requested an escort through the service entrance. We try to maintain a low profile here in order to avoid raising suspicion, and yet here you stand in tattered training gear with a chimney-cleaning midget in tow. Hardly low profile. That is what is up, Agent.”
At least he called me Agent, thought Chevie.
Waldo turned on his heel and strode through the small lobby furnished in late Victorian style, which was a huge relief to Riley, whose head was bursting with revelations.
“Should we follow the elf?” he asked Chevie.
Chevie smiled. “We should, or he gets really annoyed.”
Waldo translated his irritation into a quickstep, so Chevie and Riley had to hustle to keep on his tail. He led them around the front desk and into a small steel elevator, which he summoned with a remote control fob on his waistcoat.
Riley tried to appear blasé. “It’s an ascending room, no great shakes. I saw ’em at the Savoy years ago when Garrick sent me to suss out some swell’s gaff.”
Waldo raised an eyebrow at Chevie, who knew exactly what the unasked question was. “Yes, he talks like that all the time. It’s all Strike me blind or Cor, luv a duck with this little gent.”
Waldo took a smartphone from his pocket and typed a note. Chevie would be willing to bet that the word delusional was in the note somewhere.
They took the elevator to the fourth floor, with Riley holding grimly onto the rail.
“You can’t be overcautious,” he told Chevie. “I heard about one of these things snapping its cable in New York City. It dropped quicker than a shirkster at closing time. Made jam of the passengers.”
“I’m getting a headache listening to this cockney speak,” said Waldo. “Please God there won’t be any rhyming slang.”
Riley literally jumped from the elevator when the door opened, then they pushed through a fire door and climbed some back stairs up two more flights.
“Here we are,” said Waldo, indicating a nondescrip
t gray door with the sweep of his arm, as though it was the gateway to a palace of wonder. “Room seventeen seventy-six.”
He pressed another button on his remote and the door swung smoothly open.
“In you go, Agent. You can hole up here until a field team arrives. It shouldn’t be too long, though head office tells me that our team has already been deployed to deal with a suspected terrorist hive, in Devon, of all places. False alarm, as it turned out. So I’m guessing it’ll take an hour for them to make it back here. Plenty of time for you to get some clothes on, and for the Artful Dodger to take a bath.”
“Cheers, guv’nor, you is a proper swell,” said Riley innocently, and Chevie guessed that he knew exactly who the Artful Dodger was.
Waldo frowned suspiciously but continued his briefing. “We have a range of clothes in the closet, so you should find something to fit. And there is a fridge with cold food. Don’t open the door to anyone but me, and if someone comes through that door who is not me, then feel free to shoot them. While we are not in the embassy and so technically not on American soil, this suite is attached to the embassy, and so a strong case can be made. In any event, jurisdiction over these rooms is a gray area, which should be enough to get you back Stateside if anything goes wrong.” Waldo opened a drawer in a writing desk. “In the event you are out of ammunition, we have a selection here, behind the stationery.”
“Ooh,” said Chevie. “Stationery. Cool.”
Waldo bristled. “I would have thought, Agent Savano, that after the Los Angeles foul-up, you would take this job a little more seriously.”
“I am being serious,” said Chevie. “One of my foster moms collects stationery.”
“I shall be writing a full report,” continued Waldo, “and your attitude will be both underlined and in italics.”
Chevie selected a clip for her Glock. “Sorry, Waldo. I get a little giddy under pressure. There’s someone after us. Someone a little out of the ordinary.”
Waldo was not impressed. “Well, your someone won’t be coming in here without an assault team behind him. And even then he’d need the door remote, which is paired to my biometric readings.”