18. Farrow
Chapter eighteen
Farrow
Kohler was already in the kitchen when I came down at six.
He was in the same charcoal sweater he’d worn into the field office. He had a fresh mug of steaming coffee.
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“No.” He poured a mug for me.
I sat across from him. “Thank you for the coffee.”
“It’s all I knew to do.”
I sipped. “What was he like?”
“Henry?”
I nodded. Kohler ran a hand through his hair.
“He baked bread, badly at first. He kept a sourdough starter in our refrigerator in the Berkshires for three years and named it Bertrand. Henry read the King Arthur baking forum the way other men read the Wall Street Journal. He once made a loaf so dense I broke a tooth on the crust and didn’t tell him because he was so proud of it. ”
I smiled.
“He was terrible at chess. We played on Sundays for four years, and he never beat me. I asked him once if he wanted me to throw a game. He looked at me like I’d insulted him. He said, I want to actually beat you, Dietrich. Don’t take that from me. He died without ever taking a game from me.”
The tone of his voice lowered.
“He kept a photograph of his mother on a desk in a room he locked in the New York apartment. The only other things in the room were a desk and a chair. He went in there sometimes after his family had been on the phone. He let me in once. We sat on the floor and he held my hand for forty minutes.”
He stopped and pressed one palm flat against the marble.
“He was—“
Before he could finish, Dietrich started to cry. His shoulders shook with his mouth closed. He didn’t wipe his face.
I drank my coffee and listened.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
He nodded and pressed the heels of both hands against his eyes for three breaths. Then he dried his face with a napkin.
“Have you eaten anything this morning?”
“I haven’t been able to.”
“You’re going to.”
I cracked four eggs, beat them with a fork, and dropped two slices of sourdough bread into the toaster. I grated cheddar cheese over the eggs at the end. Dividing the eggs, I set one plate in front of him.
“Eat.”
He looked at me and looked at the plate.
“Dietrich, eat.”
He picked up the fork. The first bite was hard. By the third, he’d settled into it. He drained his coffee mug and finished everything on the plate.
“Henry would have liked you,” he said.
I ate my eggs. I didn’t trust what would come out if I spoke.
“What time are they leaving?” he asked.
“Cabot and Dane? Seven.”
“Stay in this kitchen until I come back. Eamon’s at the door.”
Eamon scheduled the briefing for six-forty. Dane and Cabot were on their way down.
Eamon, Cabot, Dane, and I gathered at the kitchen table. Kohler took his coffee into the front parlor when I returned.
“Cabot. Eleanor confirmed that lunch is at noon. Twelve at the table plus her. You’re a Globe society reporter working on your wedding profile.”
“Confirmed.”
“Dane is your photographer. He’s from a freelance pool. Today his name is Dan Marsh. He’s a Rhode Island School of Design graduate. He’s shot two Vineyard weddings this fall.”
Dane absorbed the cover without reacting.
“Stanley, Maria will pour your coffee. She’ll be performing for you, and she’ll be reading you. Behave the way you’ve behaved in that house every other time you’ve been there. Change nothing.”
“Understood.”
“Dane will watch where she goes. If she steps out of the dining room for over three minutes, he’ll flag it.”
Eamon looked at Cabot. “If your gut tells you to leave, you leave. Say I’m not feeling well and stand. No explanation is required. Dane will get you to the car. I need you back here at five.”
He folded the detail sheet and slid it to Dane. “Burn this when you’re done.”
Eamon stood and looked at me last.
“Kohler and Wiley are your job today. Vega will be here, too. Don’t open the door.”
Eamon left by the side door. Cabot went up to change. That left Dane and me.
He picked up the canvas photographer’s jacket Eamon brought and tucked the folded sheet inside. The camera was in a bag at his feet. He looked the part.
“You’re going to come back with three phone numbers and a referral to a gallery owner in Nantucket,” I said.
He chuckled and patted my cheek.
I poured him a fresh mug. “Last coffee.”
He took it and set it on the countertop. “How was Kohler this morning?”
“He cried, and he ate. Best we can hope for so far.”
“And you—how are you?” Dane asked.
“I’m fine. I have a comm and a kitchen and two principals. I’m not the one walking into Maria’s house at noon.”
Reed was at the front door with his back to us.
“Be careful,” I said.
“Always.”
“Be more careful than always.”
He stepped. closer and wrapped one hand around the back of my neck, kissing me once, hard and brief.
“You get Wiley through the day,” Dane said. “I’ll get Cabot through the day. Back at six.”
“Comm check at oh-eight-hundred,” I said.
“I’ll be in your ear.”
The SUV pulled out at seven-oh-five. My phone buzzed.
Dane: I’m carrying you with me.
Farrow: Always there.
I pocketed the phone and went to find Wiley. He was already at the desk. Both laptops were open, and he had his hair swept back with his glasses on top of his head.
“You’re up early,” I said.
“Couldn’t sleep past four. I think I got something.”
He turned the left screen.
“The Onyx Bay vocabulary shift. I’ve been calling it a two-week shift. It isn’t. The shift happened in a window of about ninety minutes. It was October seventeenth, between two-fifteen and three-forty-five.”
He turned the second screen. It had Henry’s last email to Patterson dated two fifty-one p.m., October seventeenth.
“I cross-referenced his outbound traffic against vocabulary shifts in the channels going back two years. There are seven inflection points.”
“Henry triggered the network?”
Wiley nodded. “Henry was a tripwire, signaling Maria. She was watching his outbox. Every time he sent something operational, she pushed the network forward to the next phase.”
He pulled a fourth page from a stack on the floor.
“And I went back further. The drafting voice Kohler ID’d. It goes back to 2021 cleanly. There are fragments from 2018 and 2019 that I can’t authenticate to the same standard, but they match.”
“Meaning?”
“Onyx Bay has been live since at least 2020, possibly 2018. Maria has been running it for three to five years. The wedding has been on her calendar for eighteen months. She’s been building around this target the entire time.”
I walked to the dormer. The sun was up. I thought about Kohler saying Henry was a tool.
I turned back.
“How fast can The Guardians find her people inside the house?”
“Not fast enough and not with traditional tradecraft. We need a name from inside, and we need it today. Cabot’s the only door.”
“And he’s on the way,” I said. “Send Eamon what you have.”
“Sent at five-fifteen.”
I checked my watch. It was seven-fifty-two.
I went down the hall to the comm station. At eight on the dot, I tapped.
“Dane.”
“Copy. Woods Hole. Cabot’s eating a bagel that he doesn’t want.”
“Wiley broke something. Maria’s been at it for at least five years. Henry’s outbox triggered every operational phase shift.”
A beat of silence passed between us. “Eamon has it?” Dane asked.
“Yes.”
Dane was gone.
He checked in again at nine-fifty-two. “In the front hall. Eleanor met us. Cabot’s smooth.”
I was at the kitchen window when Dane came back on the comm ten minutes later. “Cedar wall. Matches Kohler’s description. Cavity behind the partition where he said it would be.”
“Copy.”
Six minutes later: “Vestibule. Single access from the corridor. One door and one window. Catering moves through here.”
“Copy.”
The third came at ten-thirty.
“Corridor matches. Ninety feet. Joint at the eastern post. Orchids banked exactly where Kohler said. I shot Eleanor in front of the cedar wall. The cavity is eighteen inches behind her left shoulder.”
The line went quiet.
The architecture was real. Kohler had been right. The cavity was where it was supposed to be, and there was a wedding in five days. We still didn’t have the device.
I went down to the kitchen.
“Dane is in?” Kohler asked.
“He’s in. The wall is where you said it would be . You told me the truth.”
I refilled his mug.
“Farrow, what’s the plan for after the wedding?”
“Eamon has a federal placement waiting. You’ll be out of the country with all you need. You won’t be told the specifics of where until you’re in the air.”
Reed called from the door, “Farrow, black sedan at the gate.”
I joined him and looked at the camera feed. The driver’s window was down, and a gloved hand held up a phone to the camera.
“Says he’s a delivery for the parent estate,” Reed told me. “Says the gate code at the main house didn’t work.”
I tapped the comm. “Dane. Black sedan at the gate. Says delivery for the parent estate.”
A two-second pause.
“Don’t engage. Get Kohler off the ground floor. Call Eamon.”
I followed the instructions and called Eamon. He picked up on the first ring. I reported the sedan and read him the license plate.
“Stand by.”
I heard him typing.
“Farrow, that plate is registered to a shell on Wiley’s Onyx Bay tracking list.”
I closed my eyes for one breath.
“They’ve found the property. Whoever’s in that car was sent to confirm an address. They have it confirmed.”
“What’s the call?”
“Don’t acknowledge. He’ll leave.”
Reed spoke behind me: “Sedan’s pulling out. He’s gone.”
“We'll move you tonight,” Eamon said. “Cambridge. You’ll move to the Brattle House. Six p.m. Three vehicles taking three different routes. I’ll be there at five-thirty.”
“Cabot and Dane?”
“Collins will take them straight to Cambridge from Woods Hole.”
I went up to tell Wiley. He was in the office. He’d already closed both laptops.
“Black sedan at the gate. Plate matches an Onyx Bay shell. Eamon’s moving us to Cambridge tonight. Six p.m.”
He set the pen down without looking at it. “Samuel?”
“He's coming with us. Same vehicle.”
“Kohler?”
“He’ll be in our vehicle too.”