Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (19 page)

MI6 Safe House, The Cotswolds

_p. 213
O
livia blinked at the computer screen. She was sitting in a booth in a room full of computers and operators. A technician was going through the shots she had taken with her digital camera.

“What is this one of exactly?” he asked.

“Er . . .” she said. The picture was of a muscled black male torso and thighs emerging from an extremely well-packed pair of red swimming trunks.

“Shall we move on?” she said brightly.

“Lovely framing,” said a male voice. She turned. It was Professor Widgett, peering at the bulging red swimming trunks.

“I was shooting from the hip,” she said lamely.

“Obviously. Has he got a name, or just a bar code?” said Widgett.

“Winston.”

“Ah. Winston.”

“Shall we look at the next one now?”

“No. So these are all the wannabes around Feramo’s pool? What were they doing there? Servicing him?”

“I don’t know.”

“No.” He looked at the screen then sighed, as if bored, and looked at her with his head on one side. “No, we rarely know. But what do you think? What do you scent?” He looked at her, opening his eyes wide and looking quite scary for a second. “What does your gut tell you?”

_p. 214
“I think he was recruiting. I think he was using them for something.”

“Were they aware of that? Did they know what for?”

She thought for a moment. “No.”

“Did you?”

“I think it’s something to do with Hollywood,” She looked back at the bulging swimming trunks. “Feramo hates Hollywood, and they all hang around there. Shall we move on to another shot?”

“Very well. If we must, we must. Next one, Dodd. Oh my word, what have we here?”

Olivia felt like crashing her head straight down onto the desk in front of her. What had she been thinking? The next shot was a close-up of a black rubber
V
with a zip at each edge. A bronzed, flat, rock-hard abdomen was emerging from the rubber.

“Oh dear. They’re all a bit of a mess,” said Olivia, realizing she was looking at a close-up of the crotch of Morton C.

“Wouldn’t say that, darling,” murmured Widgett.

“Try the next one. I’ll be able to work out who it is.”

The technician sighed heavily and moved on. It was Morton C. again, this time from the back, wetsuit peeled to the waist to show his impeccable torso. Morton C. was glancing over his shoulder in a pose which was oddly reminiscent of a fifties pinup.

“Very alluring,” said Widgett.

“He’s not alluring,” she said, blinking angrily, humiliated. “He’s the guy I told you about who pulled a gun on me. He’s a creep.”

Widgett’s mouth twisted in amusement. “Ooh! A creep? He’s the one who works for Monsieur Feramo, we think? And in what capacity do we think? A pimp? A toyboy?”

“Well, it looked as though Feramo had taken him on fairly recently to do diving trips with the wannabes. To be honest, I think he was playing everybody off against everybody else. He was pretending to be one of the divers. He was schmoozing up to everyone in the bar and on the boat. He was just using everyone.”

_p. 215
Widgett leaned forward, raised his eyebrows wickedly, and whispered, “Did you have him?”

“No, I did not,” hissed Olivia, staring furiously at the screen. The really annoying thing was that Morton C. looked bloody attractive. He had that dangerous, focused expression on his face which had first caught her eye in Honduras.

“Pity. Interesting-looking fellow.”

“He’s a shallow, double-crossing creep. He’s little better than a common prostitute.”

There was a slight cough at the back of the room. Professor Widgett studiously inspected his fingernails as a figure rose up from one of the computer booths, a familiar figure in unfamiliar clothes: a hip-looking dark suit, tie and shirt loosened at the collar. The cropped hair was no longer peroxide. Widgett glanced around.

“ ‘Little better than a common prostitute,’ she says.”

“Yes, sir,” said Morton C.

“What was it she stabbed you with again?” said Widgett.

“Hatpin, sir,” said Morton C. dryly, emerging from the booth.

Widgett unraveled himself and rose to his feet. “Ms. Joules, may I present Scott Rich of the CIA, formerly of the Special Boat Service and one of the brightest stars of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Widgett was overemphasizing his
t
s and
s
s as if he were Laurence Olivier on stage at the Old Vic. “He’s going to be at the helm of our current operation.”

“Finest computer genius you could hope to meet,” added Dodd.

“Welcome to the operation,” said Scott Rich, nodding slightly nervously at Olivia.

“Welcome to the operation?” she said. “How dare you!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t look at me in that tone of voice. You heard.”

“Sorry about this,” said Widgett to the computer tech. “Slightly wobbly moment approaching.”

“What were you
doing
?”

_p. 216
“Surveillance,” said Morton C. slash Scott Rich of the CIA.

“I know that. I mean, what were you
doing
? If you were working for the CIA, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Some might say you should have guessed.”

“I thought you were working for Feramo.”

“Likewise,” said Scott Rich.

“What do you . . . are you suggesting . . . ?”

“Far be it from me . . .” Widgett murmured to the computer tech as if they were in a sewing circle. “But didn’t she just call him a common prostitute?”

“If I’d told you, you might have told him.”

“If you’d told me, we could have got to the bottom of what he was doing. I would have stayed.”

“I agree with her,” said Widgett, still in the gossipy voice to the computer tech. “Can’t imagine what he was doing pulling her out so quickly. Some misguided notion of chivalry.”

“Chivalry? Chivalry?” said Olivia. “You used me from the moment you set eyes on me.”

“If I’d really wanted to use you, I’d have made sure you stayed.”

“You’d have used me before that if I’d let you, and you know perfectly well what I’m talking about.”

“All right, all right,” said Widgett, and Olivia heard the authority in his voice. The flash of cold detachment in his eyes told her he had given orders for harsh things in his time. “Sort yourselves out, and I’ll see the pair of you by the steps on the front lawn. You’ll find Wellingtons and Barbours in the boot room.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Scott Rich.

“Wet-weather gear, Rich. Can’t have you tramping through the woods dressed like a waiter, can we?”

The housekeeper was waiting outside the operations room. Olivia and Scott Rich followed her down the dark, wood-paneled staircase and through to the kitchens, where there were scrubbed wooden tables, warm pipes and baking smells. The boot room was warm
_p. 217
too and paneled in white-painted tongue-and-groove, with boots, scarves, socks and coats in neat lines on hooks and racks. It was soothing and comforting, but only up to a point.

“Why did you kill Drew?” hissed Olivia, putting on a pair of thick socks and green wellies.

“What are you talking about?” said Scott Rich, pulling a black sweater over his head. “I didn’t kill that coke-crazed hippie. I tried to rescue him. Jesus!”

“Don’t pretend it was the shark,” she said, wriggling into a woolly jumper.

“If you really want the grisly details: Drew went after Feramo’s divers on his own. He got into a fight underwater. Someone pulled a knife. The sharks were coming in. Feramo’s people pulled him up onto their boat. I was following at a distance. The next thing I knew, bits of Drew were dropping over the side and every predator this side of Tobago was heading for the scene. And, by the way, your sweater’s inside out and back to front.”

She looked down uncertainly, then took it off and put it back on.

“It was you who put the cocaine in my bag in Tegucigalpa, wasn’t it?” she said, as Scott Rich pushed open the door to let her go outside.

“No,” he said.

“Don’t lie.”

He looked like a country squire. She realized she probably looked like a country squire’s wife. The cold air hit her with a shock.

They rounded the corner and the full beauty of the house revealed itself: an Elizabethan manor with tall, square chimneys and mullioned windows, perfectly proportioned in honeyed Cotswold stone.

“I didn’t put coke in your room.”

“Then who did?” she said. “And what were you doing in that tunnel? You nearly killed me.”

“Killed you?” said Scott Rich. Widgett was standing waiting for
_p. 218
them on the steps. He saw them and set off to meet them halfway across the lawn, coat and scarf flapping. “I saved your life in that tunnel. I gave you my air. You guys were the idiots who went in without leaving a marker buoy. But look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“So you did plant the coke?”

“No, I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh gawd. You two are not still arguing, are you?” said Widgett as he joined them. “Come on, let’s head for the woods. Olivia, when we get back to the house you’ll be required to sign the Official Secrets Act. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” gabbled Olivia, thrilled. “Absolutely, sir.”

“Yeees, I rather thought you’d like secrets,” said Widgett. “Everything you hear here stays here, understood? Or you’ll be taken to the Tower.”

It was a crisp winter day and the air was filled with English countryside smells, principally manure. Olivia followed the two spies along a path through the woodland, breathing in damp wood, rotting fungus, squelching through puddles in her Wellingtons, remembering the joys of being wrapped up warm outside on a cold day. She noticed a camera fastened to a tree, and then another, and then, through the misty woodland, a high-security fence with four layers of barbed wire on top of it and a soldier in camouflage gear behind it.

In the cold, Widgett’s face looked even older. The red thread veins stood out through his skin, and there was a circle of bluish tinge, like a bruise, beneath each eye. He almost looked as if he was dead: a walking cadaver.

“There are two key questions,” Scott Rich was saying. “One, what are they planning? We’re picking up Intelligence chatter which points to—”

“Oh God, Intelligence chatter. I hate that term,” said Widgett.
_p. 219
“Intelligence chatter. Intelligence chatter. Retarded intelligence, more like. Men on the ground is what we need. Human beings with human reactions to other human beings.”

“We are picking up Intelligence chatter which strongly points to imminent attacks on London and Los Angeles.”

“As well as Sydney, New York, Barcelona, Singapore, San Francisco, Bilbao, Bogotá, Bolton, Bognor and anywhere else where people send e-mails,” muttered Widgett.

Scott Rich lowered his eyelids slightly. Olivia was starting to learn this would often be the only sign you got that he was rattled. “All right. We’ve got a real human being here. She’s all yours,” he said, leaning back against a tree.

Widgett appeared to be ruminating, chewing his lip or maybe his false teeth. He fixed her with his blue eyes. “Two questions. One: What does Feramo have up his sleeve? Divers in sewers, reservoirs—nuclear cooling systems? Two: They’re trafficking explosives from the hotel setup in Honduras into southern California. How are they getting them in?”

“Is that what they were doing in Honduras?”

“Yes,” said Scott Rich, expressionless.

“How do you know?”

“Because I found C4 at the top of that cave you were on your way out of.”

Olivia looked down, frowning, thinking about herself swimming around in the cavern just looking at all the fish and thinking what bright colors they were.

“So . . . Agent Joules,” said Widgett. “Any thoughts behind that stunning façade?”

She looked at him sharply. Her mind wasn’t working properly. It had all got too important. She wanted to succeed as a spy too much.

“I need to think about it,” she said in a small voice. Widgett and Scott Rich looked at each other. She sensed disappointment from the one, and dismissiveness from the other.

“Shall we walk on?” said Widgett.

_p. 220
The two mismatched figures walked ahead, talking seriously, the one precariously tall, trailing scarves, coat flapping, with theatrical gestures, the other powerful, contained, self-possessed. Olivia followed behind miserably. She felt like a fabled musical prodigy who had got onto the stage, made a few feeble squeaking noises on a violin and let everybody down. The stress of the whole bizarre experience started to crowd in on her. She felt exhausted and strung out, girly and useless.
Breathe, breathe, calm, calm, don’t panic,
she told herself, trying to remember the Rules for Living.

Never panic. Stop, breathe, think.

Nothing is either as bad or as good as it seems.

When overwhelmed by disaster, think,
“
Oh, fuck it
.”

The key to success lies in how you pick yourself up from failure.

Olivia thought back to when she’d last used that Rule for Living: Lighting a cigarette behind the Popayan general store. She thought about Pumpkin Hill, looking down at the concrete dock, the dinner with Feramo, the wannabes around the bar, swimming round the headland to see the divers reappear with surfboards.

“Excuse me!” she said, hurrying to catch up. “Excuse me! I know how they’re getting the explosive in!”

“Oh goody,” said Widgett. “Do tell.”

“They take it by road across Honduras, then up the Pacific Coast by boat.”

“Yes, we had managed to get ourselves to that point,” said Scott. “The question was how do they get the stuff into the States?”

“I think they transfer it to posh yachts and seal it inside surfboards, either on the yachts or at Feramo’s place in Catalina.”

Scott Rich and Widgett stopped walking and looked at her.