Sacred Stone

ROGER LASSITER SAT on a bench outside the restroom in the train station at Newcastle upon Tyne. He had been watching the door and the areas nearby for the last twenty minutes. Nothing seemed amiss. He waited until the man who had just entered had finished and left. Now the facility should be empty. Glancing around one last time, he stood up and walked inside.

Then he made his way down to the far stall and took the lid off the tank.

The locker key was inside, and he quickly removed it and slid it in his pocket. Then he walked from the facility and located the locker. After watching the area for another half hour and finding nothing out of place, he waited until a luggage porter walked past and hailed him.

“I have a rental car in the parking structure,” Lassiter said, smiling, with a twenty-pound note in his hand. “If I pull it up to the doors, will you bring out a package I have?”

“Where is it, sir?” the porter asked.

Lassiter handed him the key. “Over there,” he said, “in a luggage locker.”

The porter took the key. “What kind of rental car should I look for?”

“It’s a black Daimler sedan,” Lassiter said.

“Very good, sir,” the porter said, wheeling his cart toward the locker.

Lassiter walked out of the lobby and crossed the road to the parking structure. If he got in the car, started it, and was allowed to exit the garage, he was home free. If anyone was on to him, they’d make their move by then.

No one came. No one stopped him. No one knew.

After paying the parking fee, Lassiter drove around the loop to the front of the train station. The porter was waiting alongside the curb with the box on his cart. Lassiter pulled alongside, then popped the trunk release inside the glove box.

“Put it in the boot,” he said, as he rolled down the passenger window.

The porter lifted the box into the rear of the Daimler and closed the lid. Lassiter placed the sedan into gear and pulled away.

THE CIA’S LIAISON to MI5 sat inside an office at MI5’s headquarters in London.

“Your contractors gave us a tape that shows a license number for the van that we believe left with the nuclear device,” he said. “We have a team descending on the rental agency as we speak. As soon as we retrieve the information about the renter, we should be able to recover the bomb.”

“Excellent,” the CIA agent said evenly. “Now, what is the status of our missing meteorite?”

“That should be resolved shortly,” the MI5 agent said.

“Do you need our help?” the CIA agent asked.

“I think not,” the MI5 agent said. “We have the Royal Army and Marines on the job.”

The CIA agent rose from his chair. “Then I’ll just wait for you to contact me,” he said, “after you’ve made the recovery.”

“Once we have it, I’ll contact you immediately.”

As soon as the CIA man left his office, the MI5 agent reached for the telephone.

“How long until we intercept?” he asked.

“The train is five minutes away,” a voice said.

IN A WOODED area one mile north of the village of Stockton, the nearest train station to Middlesbrough, it looked as if a war was commencing. A pair of British army Challenger tanks sat on each side of the railroad tracks. Farther up the tracks to the north, approximately where the end of the train would be after it was stopped, two platoons of Royal Marines in camouflage hid in the woods, waiting to enter the train from the rear door. Farther to the left and right of the tracks, in cleared fields hidden behind the rows of trees that lined the tracks, were a single Harrier jet and an Agustawestland A-129 Mongoose helicopter with a weapons pod attached.

From the distance to the north the sound of the number twenty-seven train grew louder.

The British army colonel in charge of the operation waited until he could see the nose of the locomotive. Then he called the engineer over a radio and ordered him to stop. As soon as the engineer caught sight of the Challengers he slammed on the brakes and the train started sliding to a stop, with sparks flying from the wheels. The Harrier and Agustawestland, which had both been hovering, popped up over the trees and assumed a fire support role at the same time that the Royal Marines slid from the woods and boarded at all the doors.

A methodical search would be made, but they would find nothing.

AT THE SAME time, Roger Lassiter was driving south on the highway leading to London. Passing Stockton, he noticed the commotion in the distance and took the exit to the right toward Windermere. Once he reached the main north-south highway that passed through Lancaster, he would continue on through Birmingham and access southern England. Lassiter lit a cigar and stared out at the rain.

APPROACHING THE THAMES from the air, Adams studied the GPS for his exact location. Cabrillo was glancing out at a park across the river. A huge tent, lit by spotlights, was swarming with workers completing the installation.

“To your left, sir,” Adams said over the headset.