Maybe he’s being too cautious, but that’s like saying there’s too much bacon.
No one in the Agency ever says those words.
Lin opens the door, passes over a bulging plastic bag, which he tosses into the trunk of the Mercedes, and in a few minutes, he’s driving the Cherokee and his two passengers back south on the M1.
Lin says, “You’re still driving the wrong way.”
“If you mean I’m driving away from your safe house, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Benjamin speaks up. “Liam … you can trust her …”
“No, I can’t,” he says. “Even with her shooting those two armed men back there. A good sign but I’m inherently suspicious, sorry. We’re about an hour away frommysafe house, which I can vouch for. In the meantime, Lin, get working on your end of the deal.”
“What?”
“Your man is rescued,” he says. “Time to make the call, to give up what’s ailing the vice president.”
“No,” she says.
Liam feels something hard and cold punch his chest. If this was all a lie and a setup, just to get Benjamin freed without the quid pro quo of saving the vice president, he’s about ten seconds from coming to a halt, opening the rear door, and shoving her out onto the busy highway.
“Better explain yourself, and now,” he says.
Lin says, “Once we’re safely in place at your facility, knowing we’ve not been followed, then I will make the call. Not sooner.”
Liam chews his lower lip.
Lin says, “Don’t like being on the other end, now, do you?”
He keeps quiet, just looking at the time, converting it to what must be early morning back in the District of Columbia.
Just what in hell might be going on back at home?
CHAPTER 113
IN HER HOME office in Georgetown, CIA Director Hannah Abrams is focused on the clock on her desk, a gift from years back from the head of MI6. It’s a piece of tourist kitsch, the Big Ben clock and tower, done up in red, white, and blue, with a grinning bulldog sitting at its base.
Jean Swantish says, “Staring at it won’t make it go any faster.”
“It should,” she says. “Liam’s been on the ground for nearly a day, and not a word.”
“That’s what you wanted,” Jean says. “For him to stay mission silent until he had Benjamin and the medical information for the vice president.”
The clock says it’s approaching eight a.m.
“Will it chime when it hits the top of the hour?”
Hannah says, “Thank God, no.”
Then she smiles, taps the tower. “Test time. What is this?”
Jean says, “More like trick time. It’s Big Ben, right?”
Hannah says, “Ha, I have you! Nope, Big Ben is the name of the clock. The name of the tower is the Elizabeth Tower. Even when everything is widely known, it can also still be wrong. Good thing to remember.”
She keeps on looking at the clock, but there’s a knock at the door, making her jump.Keep your cool, girl, you’re almost as jumpy as when you spent your first night at the Farm, wondering and dreading what was coming for you in the months ahead.
“Come in,” she says.