BYTHETIMESamira emerged from the bathroom, dressed in jeans and a sweater, Jamie had transformed back into the breezy joker. It was almost a relief when he took his turn in the shower. She didn’t have the energy to respond to his quips and she sensed by the dead look in his eyes that his heart wasn’t in them. Their mutual rejection had imposed a finality—when this crisis was over, they were over.
She dragged an armchair to the window and opened the laptop, the midmorning sun filtered to a weak haze by the netting. Across the street, the hotel sat like a squat stone cruise ship. In the turning bay three charcoal Land Rovers waited, bookended by two police cars. Cones shut out other vehicles. A man and woman stood with their backs to the convoy, dressed in black trench coats over dark suit trousers, neatly pressed shirts and ties peeping out at the collar. Diplomatic security. Another two agents stood at the tail of the convoy, one wearing black sunglasses. Lanyards carrying ID passes hung from their necks. A police motorbike buzzed up, its rider in a white helmet and high-vis jacket.
Samira brought up the senator’s schedule. He was due to meet the Dutch foreign minister at another hotel. Eleven Wi-Fi networks popped up—two for the hotel, others for the shops and offices below her and the surrounding apartments. Four networks still carried the brand name of the Wi-Fi box. If you didn’t bother changing your Wi-Fi name, there was a good chance you weren’t vigilant about the password, either. She chose one with the brand name of a company that had been defunct for at least nine years—back when “password” or “1234” or your street seemed like totally logical choices, before Wi-Fi boxes came preloaded with passwords like 2u85hjkgs767ds and you were locked out after three attempts. It took a full minute to get online.
In the last hour, Laura had updated her social media with the view from her window. Her room had to be on the other side of the building. It overlooked a grim church with a sharp black steeple, and a castle on a hill, gloomy against a gray sky. Edinburgh Castle, presumably. Samira checked the hotel website’s gallery and found the matching view. The two-bedroom Conan Doyle Suite. Had to be on the uppermost of the seven floors, going by the angle of Laura’s photo. Laura had also posted the details of that evening’s signing, at a bookshop across the city.
A car pulled up to the cones at the far end of the bay and a police officer in shirtsleeves and a chunky black vest strolled up to speak to the driver, while another officer dropped to her knees to check the underside. The driver handed a card and piece of paper through the window and the cop inspected it while his partner checked the trunk and lifted out two suitcases. The first cop waved the car along to a valet parking lectern, where the driver and a passenger climbed out. A porter in a light gray suit, with a kilt instead of trousers, wheeled the suitcases to the security tent, pausing to let the guests go in first. A kilted valet drove the car to the roller door, which slid open, revealing a basement car park.
“That’s some serious security.”
Samira jumped. Jamie was standing behind her, dressed in the ripped green sweater. His jean legs were splashed with dirt.
“American diplomats always take their security seriously,” she said. “And Hyland might not be the only foreign dignitary staying there.”
“Whoa.” His eyebrows rose, his gaze still across the street.
She turned back. The blond guy—Fitz—had stepped out of the tent with a brunette woman, and was sweeping a narrowed gaze across the scene. Samira shrank into her chair.
“Is that guy a clone?” Jamie said. “He’s everywhere at once. The woman he’s with—she was the driver of the Peugeot. Both looking fresh after their nap in the forest.”
Fitz... She did a partial word search on Hyland’s files. A few dozen hits—Fitzpatrick, Fitzgibbon, Fitzsimmon... But it was a Matisse Fitzgerald that seemed most likely. He’d been CCed into memos about the senator’s security and was listed on an itinerary of a previous official trip as “head of contract security.” A Christmas present list from a few years ago—presumably written by an assistant of Hyland’s—listed gifts for a Matisse, Jennifer, Grace and Toby Fitzgerald, and a delivery address in Washington, DC. Hardly damning evidence.
“Bingo,” she whispered, as she opened the next file.
“What have you found?” Jamie walked behind the chair.
“Fitz’s résumé, with his photo and everything. Matisse Fitzgerald. He’s ex-CIA, worked in East Africa the same time as Hyland, after Hyland left the marines and before he started up Denniston. He’s been a ‘security contractor’ ever since.”
“A mercenary?”
She frowned up at Jamie. “Isn’t that technically what you are?”
“In a sense, but I don’t get paid nearly enough. And I don’t shoot people for profit and neither does my employer—as far as I know.”
Across the road, Fitz approached the nearest pair of diplomatic security agents, who straightened. They exchanged a few words.
Jamie stepped closer to the window. Samira killed an urge to yank him back.
“Does that look tense to you?” he said.
“Diplomatic security would hate that the senator also uses his own security. A senator wouldn’t usually get this level of diplomatic protection, but I guess since he’s standing in for the secretary of state on an official visit, he’s using the secretary’s traveling detail.”
“It’d be a bad look if somebody sneaked through NATO security.”
“And yet you’re talking about sneaking through NATO security.”
“We’re not carrying bombs or AKs. They’re screening for terrorists, not petty thieves. They won’t check what we carry out, just what we take in.”
She shut the laptop and smoothed her hands over the lid. “Are we really going to try this?”
He narrowed his eyes, still watching across the road. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”
“Maybe Hyland will...trip over and the fob will fall off onto the ground and we can walk past and pick it up.”
“Let’s hope for that. But we’ll plan for something a little more challenging.”
“This is crazy. I just don’t know where we would start, getting in—”
