“He was offered the directorship of central intelligence at one time; turned it down and went to NYU, but word is, he kept his hand in. Once you’ve been at that level in the agency, you don’t just get put out to pasture.” She whipped off the motorway, made a left, drove another half a mile, and turned onto a smaller road, keeping her speed at what Stone figured was about twenty miles an hour more than the car was capable of on that road.

Stone hung onto the door handle and tried not to look at the winding black tarmac rushing at him. Dino, on the other hand, seemed perfectly awake.

“Looks like everybody knows what’s going on here except you, Stone,” he said.

“Oh, I think you’ve explained it to him very well, Dino,” Carpenter said, whipping around a hairpin turn. “You missed your calling; you’re wasted as a policeman.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Dino replied. “I wouldn’t get mixed up in your business for anything. You can never trust anybody.”

“Not a bad policy,” she replied. “Is it any better on the NYPD?”

“Marginally,” Dino said.

“Where are we going?” Stone asked.

“Right up there,” Carpenter replied. They had emerged from a stand of trees onto an open, rolling plain with few trees. Ahead of them a mile or so, at a crossroads, was a three-story stone building, which got larger fast. Carpenter skidded into the parking lot, which was nearly full, and got out of the car. “Come on,” she said.

Stone saw two men on a ladder stringing a cable from a utility pole on the road to a corner of the building. He looked at the sign: THE BREWER’S ARMS, it read. He followed Carpenter inside.

53

THEY WALKED UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR of the country inn, past a guard, and into a roomy, two-bedroom suite, which contained half a dozen men, most in their shirtsleeves, and several pieces of electronic equipment—radios, computers, and two large, flat-screen monitors. Thick wires ran from the equipment out a window, where Stone had seen the two men stringing wire, and he could see a small satellite dish mounted to the windowsill.

“What’s happening?” Carpenter said to one of the men. “Oh, this is Barrington and Bacchetti; they’re with me. Gentlemen, this is Plumber.”

“We’re just about set up,” Plumber said. “We’re expecting satellite contact any moment, and we’ve got great weather for it.”

“What have you done with the two subjects’ homes?”

“We couldn’t get anything decent with sonic equipment,” Plumber said. “They both live in official housing, and double glazing was installed a few months ago, so we can’t get anything off the glass. We’ve tapped both phones from the exchange, but since they’re both at work, we’re not getting anything.”

“Eyeball surveillance?”