The Hoard by Jack Brandon

Author:Jack Brandon [Brandon, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-12-10T16:00:00+00:00

24

IPI, Haymarket, London

After his long spell in the US, there was much for Wilder to catch up on in the office. Apart from the Gemini matters that had taken up so much of his time, his usual work pursuing international espionage, had increased, especially internet related. His morning had been taken up meeting with his top team. He had added some focus, reinvigorated the team and the meeting was just breaking up when Wilder got a call from Mina Falcone. It was to take him straight back into the world of Gemini.

‘I just had a call from my Uncle Mario Falcone,’ she said, urgency in her voice. ‘You’re trying to protect a family now calling themselves Smythson, is that right?’

‘I am,’ said Wilder, getting one of his uncomfortable premonitions.

‘Bad news for you then. A gentleman by the name of Cesare Moretti has discovered that his colleague Giovanni Salucci is the same person as Simon Smythson – something about staying in the same hotel? Anyway, this Moretti has lost contact with Salucci and, as you know, my Falcone cousins think I work in the Home Office. So, Uncle Mario asked me to get the Home Office control freaks to find out where this Salucci has gone. He thinks that the Home Office keeps track of the millions of tourists who come here. Still, this stupid idea could be useful to you. I can feed him any information you want me to pass on to him.’

Wilder thought about this for a moment.

‘What if the couple left the UK and went on a tour of Europe? After all, if the Smythson’s travelled to France and then on to Italy, you could pretend that you had connections to the authorities over there?’

‘I could,’ said Mina slowly – then thinking some more about it, added, ‘But I think you’d need a real couple for Moretti and the others to follow – find they’d genuinely been at the hotel we sent them to. But how are you going to get the Smythsons rushing off around Europe?’

There was no need to tell Mina about the Smythson’s accident and that they wouldn’t be going anywhere just now, so he just made up his answer on the spot. ‘Don’t worry about the detail, let’s just say that Betty Smythson has never been outside the US and they’ve decided to do a bit of travelling. I’ll make that look plausible by feeding back to you updates of where the Smythson’s are at any time. As you just said, you can pretend that you’ve got good access to European tourist information sources.’

‘Yeah, I could make that work,’ replied Mina. ‘So, you’re thinking of leading Moretti and the Falcone’s off on a wild goose chase ...’

‘While I find a more secure hiding place for the Smythsons here in the UK? Yes,’ said Wilder finishing off her thought for her.

‘Okay, I’ll wait for you to get your side of that set up. And as soon as you’ve got a European destination for the Smythson’s, give me a call back and I can pass it on to Uncle Mario.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.