DuBois gave her a big smile and exited the PM’s offices. Before leaving Government House he walked down a floor to the offices of the Home Secretary, and in the waiting room he spoke to the male secretary at the desk. “Please tell the home secretary that I wish to meet with him at once.”
The man’s small eyes flicked over duBois’s uniform, noting the eagles on his shoulders. He picked up a phone. “Sir: Colonel Marcel duBois requests an immediate conference. Yes, sir, he is here.” He hung up the phone. “Please go in, Colonel duBois.”
DuBois walked into the home secretary’s office, strode to his desk. “Good afternoon,” he said, placing the files in his hand on the desk. “I require search warrants and arrest warrants for these six men,” he said, “without delay. Please make a note of the names, as I shall be keeping the files.”
“What grounds do you have for these warrants?” the home secretary asked.
“The prime minister’s request,” duBois replied.
“I shall have them delivered to your office in an hour,” the home secretary replied. “Ah…where is your office?”
“Where Colonel Croft’s office once was,” duBois replied. He waited while the home secretary wrote down the names, then took the files and left the office and Government House.
As he reached the bottom of the steps duBois noted with pleasure that his driver was standing next to a new, white Mercedes S500 sedan. His old BMW 3 was not in sight.
“Congratulations, Colonel,” his driver said, opening the rear door for him.
“Thank you, Nigel,” duBois replied. “Take me to my new office.”
“Yes, sir,” Nigel replied. He put the car in gear and sped away.
DuBois ran his fingers over the leather interior and fiddled with the rear-seat controls for the air conditioning and radio. “Nigel?” he said.
“Yes, Colonel?”
“See to the installation of satellite radio as soon as possible.”
“Of course, Colonel. The phone and communications radio have already been installed; the handsets are in the rear armrest.”
DuBois opened the armrest and examined the equipment with satisfaction. “Faster,” he said, then felt the seat press into his back with the acceleration.
41
Holly and Stone sat and waited while Bill Pepper fired up his laptop and waited for it to boot. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
“What?” Holly asked.
“It’s not booting properly,” Bill replied. “Instead, it’s crashing. Let me try again.” He rebooted.
“I don’t like this,” Holly said. “When did they take the laptop?”
“When they arrested me at my office,” Bill said. “Oh, shit, it’s crashed again.”
Annie spoke up. “Use your backup boot disk,” she said. “It’s in your desk drawer.”
Pepper went into his study and came back. “Gone,” he said. “They must have taken it when they searched the house.” He went into the living room and removed a picture from the wall, revealing a small safe with an electronic keypad. He tapped in the code, opened the safe, removed a computer disk and rehung the picture.
“Thank God,” Holly breathed.
Pepper returned to the dining table, inserted the disk and rebooted. “It’s giving me a choice of start-up sources,” he said. “Let’s try the hard disk; if it won’t boot from the hard disk, then it’s going to have to go to Langley for a recapturing of all the files.” He sat and watched the screen. “Seems to be booting,” he said. “I’m in!”
Holly walked around the table and stood behind him. An encryption page appeared on the screen. Pepper went through three stages of typing in long sequences of numbers and letters, then, finally, the desktop appeared.
“Here we go,” Pepper said. “I’ll bring them up side by side.” He hit some more keys. “There,” he said, “Pemberton on the left, Weatherby on the right, Robertson in the middle.”
“Well,” Holly said, “I can tell you that Robertson isn’t Teddy. He’s too young by fifteen years. I don’t think Teddy could fake that.”
Stone came and stood next to Holly. “They look like passport photographs,” he said.