“Too much.” Gabriel indicated the BMW. “That’s hers too. Given her driving record, it’s a miracle the thing is still in one piece.”
“We should probably lose it somewhere.” Christopher opened his door. “How much does she know about me?”
“It’s possible she heard about your torrid affair with Olivia Watson, but otherwise you’re a blank canvas.”
“Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”
Christopher followed Gabriel across the garden to the entrance of the chalet. Inside, DI Timothy Peel of the Devon and Cornwall Police was playing a game of Scrabble with Britain’s most famous missing woman. Ingrid was hunched over her laptop.
“What’s she doing?” asked Christopher.
“Downloading the entire database of the Knight Group Limited.”
Christopher looked at Alice Winter, who was placing lettered tiles upon the board. “Does Mr. Knight’s wife know?”
Gabriel smiled. “Where do you think Ingrid got Mr. Knight’s password?”
36
Bern–Dartmoor
After hearing the story for himself, Christopher agreed with Gabriel’s conclusion that secure communications were in order, so he commandeered Alice’s BMW and drove it dangerously fast down the valley to the British Embassy in Bern. There, in a safe-speech room inside the SIS station, he rang the European operations desk at Vauxhall Cross and requested private air travel from Bern to Britain for himself and four other passengers. Their arrival, he explained, would need to be pitch black, with no passport checks and no ground personnel of any kind near the aircraft. One of the passengers, he added, would require safe lodging for the foreseeable future.
“It’s not another Russian defector, I hope,” said the desk officer. “We’re still cleaning up the mess from the last one.”
“Not to worry. She’s housebroken.”
“Name?”
“Alice Winter.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me right.”
“Why is this a matter for SIS?”
“You’ll know soon enough.”
Because British budgets were tight, even at the Secret Intelligence Service, the desk officer required the approval of higher authority before he could authorize the expenditure for a private plane. Christopher cooled his heels in the Head of Station’s office for nearly an hour before the desk officer finally rang him back.
“The plane’s in the air. It should be on the ground in Bern in two hours’ time.”
“What about a safe house?”
“The staff at Wormwood Cottage are eagerly awaiting your arrival. So is the chief, by the way.”
“Is there any chance he can join us for dinner? An old friend of his will be on the flight.”
“Which one?”
Christopher said the name.
“That explains everything,” said the desk officer, and the connection went dead.
The Head of Station had listened in on the call from an extension. “What would you like us to do about her car?” he asked.
“Have one of your officers leave it in a dodgy quarter of Lyon with the key on the passenger seat. It will be gone in no time.”
