Dead Line by Stella Rimington

Author:Stella Rimington [Rimington, Stella]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

Wetherby had decided to keep his visit to Washington very low-key so, unusually, no one met him at the airport. After the usual lengthy wait, Immigration accepted him for who he said he was: Edward Albright, a London businessman in town for a couple of meetings, staying just the one night.

He’d picked a hotel in Virginia, on the airport side of the city, not far from Langley, where he was due first thing in the morning. With any luck he’d catch the early-evening flight back to London the following day.

His hotel, one of a vast American chain, was comfortable, clean and entirely soulless. He phoned home and spoke to Joanne who, five hours later, was getting ready for bed. Then he ate an early dinner in the hotel restaurant - an overcooked steak and a glass of California cabernet. Back in his room, he lay down for a while on one of his room’s two large double beds and clicked idly through what seemed to be several thousand television channels.

He thought with amusement how he could have squeezed the entire Wetherby family into this ample room. When the boys were small, they’d often stayed in more cramped quarters on their trekking holidays in Europe. They’d made walkers of the boys early on, and he remembered fondly how the then-healthy Joanne had put them all to shame when it came to stamina in the Tuscan hills or Pyrenees, where they’d go for two weeks in August. Now, he thought sadly, she ran out of puff after twenty minutes in their garden.

In the morning he made the short drive to Langley, stopped at the security sentry post, then parked his hired car where he was directed near the headquarters building. The CIA’s director of counter intelligence was Tyrus Oakes, a long-time Agency veteran, lacking any public profile but famous within the halls of Langley. He had many quirks, most notably a habit of taking voluminous notes throughout even the most pedestrian meeting, all collected on the yellow legal pads that American attorneys in pre-computer days had used to compose their briefs.

Physically, too, he was unusual - a small, slight man with a razor-edged nose and big ears that protruded from each side of his head like satellite dishes. To his friends, mainly fellow senior officers, he was known as Ty; to those who knew him only by repute, he was The Bird.

Wetherby had come to realise over the years that the different reactions he sometimes received from Oakes had nothing to do with Wetherby’s position as an intelligence officer of a foreign country, but only with the extent to which he shared Oakes’s views about the matter under discussion. This gave Wetherby slight forebodings about his forthcoming conversation, since he couldn’t believe Oakes was going to be very happy with what he had to say.

‘Charles, it’s real good to see you.’ Oakes came out from behind the desk.

‘And you, Ty.’

‘Take a seat,’ said Oakes, pointing to a chair in front of his desk, while he retreated behind it.

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