He picked up the fresh mug.
Reed was upstairs sleeping until seven. Farrow’s door had opened at five-fifty, and the bathroom tap had run for two minutes and gone quiet. He’d be down inside the next fifteen.
“Walk me through Thursday,” I said. “From Henry’s end. I want to think about what he’ll see.”
Cabot folded his hands on the table.
“He arrives between eight forty-five and nine. He comes through the front entrance and doesn’t scan the room before sitting at his table. After folding his coat on the chair beside him, he orders, opens his newspaper, and reads.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I watched him through the window twice.”
“Does he have his eyes on the page or on the room over the page?”
“Page. But when someone enters, his head doesn’t move. His eyes do.”
“Any other regulars you noticed on those two occasions?”
“Three or four other customers. The barista knew them. A man in his sixties took the other window table.”
“Did anyone join Henry?”
“No. Both times he was alone at his table the entire visit. He left between nine forty-five and ten, paid cash, and walked east.”
Farrow came through the kitchen doorway. He wore a dark thermal t-shirt under an unzipped hoodie, with his sidearm at the small of his back. He didn’t speak before he crossed to the coffeemaker, poured himself a mug, and took up a position against the counter.
“I’m walking Cabot through the café placement,” I said.
“Run it again from the top,” Farrow said. “I want to hear the whole thing.”
I ran it.
“What comms will you use?” Farrow asked.
“Three channels. You and I share one. You’re in the loop from here. Reed is on two. Collins on three. Eamon monitors all three. Michael is looped in from Seattle.”
I turned to Cabot.
“You don’t approach, and you don’t force recognition. You sit where he can see you, and you let him decide whether this is a meeting.”
“Understood.”
“If he hands you something, you take it. You don’t read it. You put it in your coat pocket. If he speaks, you listen. You don’t write it down. If he gets up and walks out, you let him. Under nocircumstances do you stand up from that table before I tell you to.”
Cabot looked down at his pages. He’d circled Henry’s name twice in the middle of the third column.
Farrow’s weight had shifted forward half an inch against the counter. He wanted to be inside that café on Thursday, reading the room from a separate table.
He couldn’t be. Wiley and Cabot could not be in the same place in public, and Farrow couldn’t leave his principal, Wiley, alone. Farrow knew the math. He still didn’t like it.
I looked at him.
“Are you expecting Henry to spook?” Farrow asked.
“I’m expecting him to read Cabot the moment Cabot walks in. Whether he spooks depends on what he’s been told to do if Cabot shows up.”
I turned back to Cabot.