The Sixth Day (A Brit in the FBI #5)(48)

“Thank you for trying, sir. Good to see you.”

“You, too, Drummond”—and after a nod to Mike, he added to Nicholas, “I thought I asked you to get it sorted.” And he was gone.

DI Griffith looked sharp, tall, black hair twisted up in a roll at the back of her head. She was wearing a blue suit with a bulletproof vest under her blouse. She looked once at Nicholas, looked again, something Mike was used to from nearly every woman who spotted him. To her credit, Griffith got her cop brain turned back on and said, her voice official, “Agent Drummond, I was actually in uniform when you were Penderley’s go-to. You’re a hard act to follow, but I’ll get there.” She looked him up and down, all cop now, shook her head. “Imagine, you left us to become the first Brit in the American FBI.”

Nicholas smiled, said immediately, “Can you tell us exactly what’s happened?”

Griffith waved across the street, where Mike could see the gray wainscoted front of the restaurant; its name, MARIANNE, on a sign hanging over the door. People were huddled along the old redbrick walls, numb and gawking. There were faces staring out of the restaurant windows at the chaos outside.

And Mike saw the shape of a body under a white tarp.

Griffith said, “Mr. Alexander is lying where he fell. Too soon to know exactly what happened, but witnesses say he stopped on the sidewalk right outside the restaurant, to make a call. He slapped a hand to his neck and went down. He was dead before the first emergency calls went out. If we hadn’t had two other influential people die in two days, I don’t think we’d be looking at this as anything other than a heart attack or stroke, but clearly, it’s much more.”

Nicholas asked, “May we see the body, please?”

“Certainly.” Griffith smiled at him, but it was professional this time, cop to cop.

Mike asked, “Were there any drones reported in the area?”

“We haven’t heard of any, and believe me, I’ve told all our officers to ask, given how Mr. Donovan and Mr. Hemmler were murdered.” She led them across the street, where two officers were guarding the body.

Nicholas went down on his haunches and pulled back the sheet.

They looked down at the congested face of the former secretary of defense. His bulging eyes stared back at them.

“Not a peaceful death,” Griffith said.

Nicholas shook his head. “No.” Using his forefinger, he gently moved the head from left to right. “Nothing on his neck I can see. May we roll him over?”

Mike said, “No, wait, Nicholas. Look there, right under his ear. There’s a red spot.”

“Good eyes, Agent Caine. You’re right, there is.” He began scanning the ground. So much dirt, rocks, little bits of litter, detritus on the street.

He grinned up at Mike. “You know what we need, don’t you?”

“Yep. DI Griffith, any chance you have a magnet around?”

“A magnet? I don’t—wait, I do, sort of. The cover of my iPad is magnetized. It’s constantly picking up loose paper clips from my desk. Why?”

Nicholas grinned. “That will work. Can you fetch it, please?”

“Thank goodness Scotland Yard froze the scene,” Mike said, “or we wouldn’t have had a chance of finding it.”

Griffith returned, handed over her red-cased tablet. “Here you go. I also put a call in for someone to bring us a magnet a bit more powerful, just in case.”

He opened the cover. First, he slowly ran it over the body. “I don’t think it’s here.”

“It?”

Mike said to Griffith, “We believe there is a very small needle, or something similar, somewhere nearby.”

Nicholas whooped, stood up. “And here it is, not three feet from the body.” The edge of the case now had a small, thin piece of metal stuck to its edge.

Mike examined it. “Say hello to our murder weapon.”





CHAPTER THIRTY


Drones have been around for more than two decades, but their roots date back to World War I when both the U.S. and France worked on developing automatic, unmanned airplanes. But the last few years have been significant in terms of drone adoption, usage expansion across industries, and global awareness.

—Business Insider

The Old Garden

Twickenham

Richmond upon Thames, London

Roman smiled when he saw the name on the caller ID. He said to Radu, “He’s right on time.” He said into his mobile, “Hello, Barstow. I trust you have my money?”

Barstow shouted in his ear, “Are you barking mad? This has to stop! Do you understand me? Once again you’ve acted stupidly, thoughtlessly!” A pause, Barstow sucked in a breath, and he sounded calmer. “All right, tell me why you killed Alexander.”

Roman said, “You told me yourself he wanted out. He cost me another one hundred and fifty million pounds. I trust the others have paid?”

There was a moment of silence.

Roman asked softly, “Who else wants out of our project?”

“No, no one, at least not yet. I’m working on her, she’ll come through.”

“We have two women. Which her?”

“All right, it’s Paulina Vittorini—but, Roman, I can talk her around, but you need to let her see the drone army first. All right?”