Tim Barnes spoke up again. “If the old acquaintance was Simon Garr, I think Roger, at least at one time, might have enjoyed that experience.”

“Terry,” Felicity said, “I think it might be worth the resources to increase the manpower devoted to surveilling Roger.”

“It shall be done,” Terry replied.

“And perhaps,” Felicity said, “they could stop losing him for hours or days at a time.”

—

“You have the most interesting guests at dinner parties,” Holly said after they had made love and were resting. “And the most interesting conversations.”

“You can thank Dame Felicity for providing both the guests and the topics of conversation,” Stone replied.

“Did Roger Fife-Simpson strike you as someone who might be bought by the Russians?”

“Given what happened to his career, he strikes me as someone who might be very angry with his former associates,” Stone replied.

44

The following morning Stone received a package from Lance Cabot that contained some personalized CIA stationery, a pair of operations manuals, and a kind of employees’ handbook for Agency personnel. He spent a good part of the day reading them and found them enlightening.

That afternoon—early morning in the States—Stone received a phone call from Lance.

“Scramble,” Lance said.

“Hang on.” It took him a moment to hit the right buttons. “Scrambled,” he said.

“Henceforth, all our conversations will be scrambled,” Lance said.

“All right.”

“Did you get the reading materials I sent you?”

“Yes, and I have already read them.”

“Good man,” Lance said. “Since you haven’t spent three or four months at the Farm, you’ll need to fill in a few gaps in your knowledge of how we work.”

“It seems to me that my knowledge is mostly gaps,” Stone replied.

“We can live with that. Occasionally, we recruit someone who has an actual life that can’t be interrupted for long periods, so we make do.”

“I understand, and I’ll try to keep up.”

“Stone, I called because there has been a flurry of activity about you on a number of Internet search engines that, normally, would ignore your existence.”

“So, word is getting around about our arrangement?”

“We’ve factored that into our analysis, and we believe that there is more than that going on.”

“What do you believe is going on?”

“We’ve had flurries like this when the Russians have taken an interest in a particular person, especially one connected with us. We keep a watch on the search engines they commonly use. Have you had any recent contact with Russians, or with people you suspect might be associated with their intelligence agencies?”

“No, but at dinner last night with Dame Felicity, her new deputy and his wife—Terrence and Dorothy Maldwin—were there, and the conversation turned to the man Maldwin is replacing.”

“I know them both,” Lance said, “and Terry is a good choice for her deputy. Why did Fife-Simpson’s name arise?”