“You stole my wallet?”
“I had it done. And you’re responsible for putting a retired policeman in the hospital.”
“He was working for you? I had no way of knowing that.”
“I should warn you that there’s another retired policeman, a much larger one, looking for you right now, and I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when he finds you.”
“Oh, Christ,” Bartholomew said, tugging at his whiskey. “What the hell were you doing having me followed and my pocket picked?”
“I like to know the truth about the work I do, and I wasn’t getting it from you.”
Bartholomew rubbed his face with his hands.
“What is your real name?”
“That’s not important,” Bartholomew said. “You’re better off not knowing, believe me.”
“As you wish. Since Stanford Hedger is dead, I’ll assume that’s just another alias.” His eyes narrowed. “Or maybe not. You are Hedger, aren’t you? And you just want someone to think you’re dead.”
“How the hell do you know about that?”
“I have my resources, Mr. Hedger.” Stone decided to fire a guess. “Tell me, was Lance Cabot one of your bright young men at the Company?”
Hedger shot him a sharp glance. “You’re wandering into an area where you shouldn’t be.”
“I’ve been in that area since I arrived in London,” Stone replied. “Thanks to you. What was it you really wanted to accomplish when you put me onto Lance Cabot’s back?”
“You’re better off not knowing.”
Stone guessed again. “It wasn’t exactly official Company business, was it?”
Hedger shook his head slowly.
“What was it about?”
“All right, I’ll tell you; I guess I owe you that. But you breathe a word of this, and you’ll be in more trouble than you can imagine.”
For a moment, Stone thought he probably shouldn’t know this; then he changed his mind. “Tell me,” he said.
Chapter 23
HEDGER, IF THAT WAS HIS NAME, leaned back in his chair and sipped his whiskey. “It was a Middle Eastern operation,” he said, “and those are always a mess. We had—still have—a shortage of Arabic-speaking operatives, locals who blend in—and that always makes things difficult. Even when you recruit them, you can never really put any trust in them; you never know if they’re doubling for Hamas, or some other radical organization.
“Cabot fit in really well out there; his Arabic was outstanding—so good that he could impersonate an Arab on the phone, if not in person; he wore the region like an old shoe. So much so that I began to suspect him.”
“Of what? Of being an Arab?”
“Of course not; the man looks like a California surfer, doesn’t he?”
No, Stone thought, but he understood what Hedger meant. “If you say so.”
“I began to feel that he was too much taking the part of the people who were supposed to be the opposition. He didn’t like the Israelis we dealt with—thought they were too smart and too devious—and he seemed charmed by Arab custom and even by their fanaticism. He said that’s the way he would be if he were a Palestinian. That sort of comment doesn’t go down well with one’s colleagues, you know?”
“I can imagine.”
“Lance developed some Palestinian contacts—a man and a woman—whom he trusted, but I didn’t. He kept making the case that we should take them inside, tell them more. I wouldn’t do it. I always felt that, the moment we turned our backs, they’d be on the phone to Yasser Arafat or somebody, and that we’d end up paying the price. Well, we did.”
“Did trust them?”
“To an extent. And we paid the price. We put together an operation—I can’t tell you exactly what, but it was supposed to disrupt the leadership of a particularly virulent organization. Lance and I went to Cairo, where our people there put together two explosive devices that were to be carried into buildings by our two operatives, concealed somewhere, then left with timers set. We arranged a meeting in a safe house, and both operatives showed up, but Lance didn’t. He called and said he’d be late. I explained to these two people how the devices worked, and showed them how to set the timers. I waited as long as I could for Lance, then I sent them on their way. Five minutes later, the safe house exploded. The operatives had brought something with them. Lance was, apparently, watching from across the street, and he was on the scene very quickly.
“I was unconscious and was taken to a safe hospital. When I woke up and figured out what had happened, I told my people to tell Lance I had died. That’s how Stan Hedger came to be dead.”