taxi. After some hesitation, he stepped into the guard shack.
The driver said, “How ’bout you settle the fare and get out here, mate?”
Mars handed the man the fare in cash with a healthy tip, then opened his car door.
He didn’t need to stand up, because soldiers rushed him, grabbed him, pushed him onto the ground, and put guns to his back.
Lying there on the drive next to the astonished cabbie looking down on him out his window, Zakharov said, “Suzanne Brewer. CIA. If someone could be so kind as to call her, I’d appreciate it very much indeed.”
CHAPTER 61
Suzanne Brewer sat at the opening night formal dinner, sipping chardonnay and looking at her phone, held down below the table so as not to make obvious the fact that she was not paying attention to the man speaking. The director of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service was giving a talk about the benefits of cooperation, and the four hundred guests in attendance were eating salmon or filet and trying to stay awake.
An Englishman with the site security detachment knelt down next to her at the table. “Ms. Brewer, is it?”
“That’s right.”
“We have a situation at the front gate. Could you come with me, please?”
“I don’t have anything to do with security here. You need to find someone who—”
“You’ve been requested personally, ma’am.”
She flashed a glance at Hanley, seated at another table and no less bored, and then she followed the younger man out through the tables and into the hallway.
Once there, he stopped and turned to her. “There is a man we’ve taken into custody trying to get in to see you. He has no credentials. Only a UK passport.”
“What’s his name?”
“David Mars. He’s showing up on a brand-new watch list that was—”
Brewer spun away and ran back into the banquet hall in the direction of Matt Hanley.
* * *
• • •
Court Gentry had slept five hours that afternoon and early evening but finally woke when the meds began to wear off and the pain in his hand began to flare up. He dressed quickly in Aaronson’s suit; it was a little big for him but he made it work, struggled mightily to tie his tie with one good hand and just the fingertips of the other, and he put his badge lanyard around his neck. He left his room and went to the lobby in front of the closed doors of the grand hall. A black tie affair was going on inside; he expected that a couple of Ground Branch men would be inside watching over Hanley, and he started to head that way.
“Hey, Six. Have you checked this place out?”
Court turned to find Hightower, also dressed in a suit and tie, coming up the hall from the main doors.
“The castle? No, not really.”
“There’s an armory, a dungeon down below, three really swanky libraries. It’s pretty sweet.”
“It’s good to be king,” Court said, but he didn’t really care about the old building. He was more concerned about where Zoya was and what she was doing, but he knew he had to be here, ready to kit up and climb back in the Direct Action Penetrator as soon as there was any sighting of Zakharov.
“How is security?” he asked.
“Just fair, to be honest. The troops outside are the bulk of the protection of this place. Since the meetings in here are all classified, they are minimizing the number of security personnel inside the castle. The UK relies more on gates and cameras than it does on guns, anyway. I’ve seen maybe twenty armed guards inside the keep itself, but that’s about it.”
Suzanne Brewer burst out of the ballroom with Matt Hanley, followed by Jenner and Lorenzi. They walked at a fast pace, and Court and Zack fell into step with them when Hanley motioned to them.
As he walked Hanley said, “Zakharov turned himself in at the front gate.”
Court said, “Why the hell would he go and do a thing like that?”
Brewer answered, “We have no idea. He’s being brought into a makeshift interrogation room on the third floor. I need you two there guarding him, at least till we know what his play is.”
* * *
• • •
Ten minutes later, Zoya Zakharova pulled her Nissan up to the guard shack. A woman in a Scottish military uniform nodded at her curtly. “Your credentials, ma’am?”
Zoya spoke in her American English accent. “I am here to see Suzanne Brewer.”
The woman’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know who that is, ma’am, but you’re not