by Stuart Woods
“So long-distance design works, huh?”
“I am absolutely delighted with the computer program, and with the client’s willingness to make decisions from looking at pictures on a screen. This is going to make me a lot more productive.”
“I’m glad to hear it, if it will make it easier for you to come to New York.”
“It just might,” she replied.
They had lunch downstairs and then left for New York.
—
They drove back to I-84 West, and as they crossed the state line, they passed a black BMW SUV, parked on the shoulder. Stone watched in his mirror as the driver started the car and pulled into traffic behind them.
“What is it?” Susan asked.
“Another black SUV. Let’s see if he follows us when we get onto I-684.” The SUV followed. Stone called Dan Brady.
“Sorry to trouble you again, Dan, but I’ve got another one on my tail, this time a black BMW SUV.”
“Where are you?”
“In New York State, and I don’t know anyone on the state police here.”
“I’ll call somebody, and they’ll be in touch. What’s your position?”
“On I-684 South, middle lane, coming up on the Hardscrabble Road exit. I’ll be turning off at the Sawmill, at Exit 5.”
“What are you driving?”
“A Blaise. I hope they’ll know what that is.”
“I’m on it,” Dan said, then hung up.
Stone tried driving faster, then slower, and the BMW kept pace, always two or three cars back. As he left the interstate and turned onto the Sawmill his phone rang. “Yes?”
“Mr. Barrington, this is Lieutenant Schwartz of the New York State Police. We hear from Colonel Brady in Connecticut that you’re driving a Blaise and being pursued by a black BMW SUV. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“We should have eyes on you and him within about five minutes.”
“I’m on the Sawmill now, passing Katonah.”
“Stand by.” He was quiet for a moment, then came back. “We’ve got you,” he said. “Pull off the Sawmill at the next exit, and I’ll have him stopped there. You stop, too.”
“Lieutenant, your trooper should know that the last one who followed me was armed with a handgun and a shotgun, both loaded.”
“I heard that from Colonel Brady,” he said. “We’ll have two cars on the stop. Slow down to forty when you’re off the Sawmill, and stay on this line with me.”
“Will do.”
Stone saw an exit coming up and put on his blinker. He left the Sawmill and slowed to forty mph; so did the BMW. As he watched in the mirror he saw two New York State Police cars coming up from behind. One passed the BMW, and the other pulled in behind. Once they had him boxed, their lights came on, and they pulled him onto the shoulder.
“Stay in your car,” Schwartz said.
“Yes, sir.” He watched in his mirror as two troopers pulled a man from the BMW, while two other troopers stood behind his car, weapons drawn. He saw the man being frisked and relieved of a handgun, then cuffed. One of the troopers then opened the rear door and removed what looked like an assault rifle.
“That’s it,” Schwartz said, “he’s in custody, and he doesn’t have a carry license. You may proceed on your way now, and we’ll be in touch if we need you further.”
“Thank you very much, Lieutenant, and goodbye.” Stone made a U-turn and got back on the Sawmill.
“You seem to have very good relations with the police,” Susan said, “and in two states. I’m impressed.”
“Dan Brady did all the work,” Stone said.
“Do you think that man really meant you harm?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think he was armed to protect himself from me.”
21
Stone was at his desk the following morning when Dino called. “I’m messengering something to you,” he said. “I want you to read it immediately, then messenger it back to me.”
“All right.” Joan walked in with a package. “I think it’s already here.” Stone unwrapped it and found an FBI file about an inch thick, with the name Donald Beverly Calhoun on it.
“Read it and call me back,” Dino said.
Stone started to read.
—
It was nearly lunchtime when he finished and called Dino. “Thank you,” he said.
“You read it all?”
“Yes. How did you get it?”
“I called the director at home, and he had it copied and sent to me.”
“Do you mind if I copy it?”
“No, but keep quiet about it. What were your impressions?”
“I’m amazed at the guy’s ability to skate on thin ice without ever falling through. I mean, once in a while the ice cracks, and he dips a leg into the water, but then he manages to get up and skate on.”
“What I can’t figure out,” Dino said, “is what he wants. I mean, if he just wants to make money, he’s doing that with his books and ‘documentaries,’ for which he’s getting forty bucks a pop and not splitting the take with an agent or publisher. The guy’s printing money.”
“And he’s doing it all under the radar,” Stone pointed out. “You hardly ever see anything about him in the papers and TV programs I watch.”
“Except when he has a magazine writer murdered, or somebody makes a movie about somebody a lot like him.”
“He’s trying hard to find Peter and Ben, and he’s having me followed by armed men,” Stone said, and told Dino about his experiences over the weekend.
“You did the right thing, calling Dan Brady,” Dino said. “Maybe if you keep getting his people arrested, he’ll back off.”
“I hope you’re right. We’ll lose them when Susan and I leave for England later in the week. I hope I’m right about that, too.”
“Me, too, since Viv is going with you.”
“I’ll have Joan send the file back to you right away,” Stone said. They said goodbye, and he buzzed Joan, who came in. He handed her the file. “Please copy this—the whole thing—then messenger it back to Dino.”
Joan weighed it in her hands. “The whole thing, huh?”
“All of it, and make two copies.”
“Okay, boss.” She left, then he heard the Xerox machine laboring away.
Susan was working on Margo Eggers’s house, so he had Helene send lunch up to her, then made a date with Mike Freeman at the Four Seasons Grill Room.
—
Over lunch, Stone told Mike about what was going on. “Have you ever heard of this guy Calhoun?”
“Here and there over the years, but you’re right, he skates on thin ice remarkably well.”
Stone pulled a wrapped package from under the table and handed it to him. “This is his FBI file. Don’t ask how I got it. Read it, then send it back to me.”
Mike accepted the package. “You know what I find most remarkable about Calhoun?”
“What?”
“Most of these—let’s call them tribal leaders—live somewhere like on a mountaintop in Idaho, or some lost ranch in the Mojave Desert, but Dr. Don’s business and his people are based in a major American metropolis.”
“Hiding in plain sight.”
“Exactly. I wonder if his neighbors even know he’s there.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want him in my neighborhood.”
“I think you ought to let me put some people on your house,” Mike said. “I don’t like people in black SUVs running around with loaded illegal weapons.”
“Well, nobody took a shot at me. In fact, I accosted the first guy when he asked for Peter at the front desk of the Mayflower. He didn’t think he was stepping on my toes, he just thought Peter was there.”
“Why did he think Peter was there?”
&nbs
p; “Because he followed me there from New York. I’d already told him on the phone that Peter was on vacation at a resort, so I guess he thought I was going to see him, not selling my house to Bill Eggers.”
“You know, I would have bought your house, if I’d known it was on the market.”
“I’m flattered, but I never put it on the market. I just told Eggers about it, and he bit—or, at least, his wife did.”
They shook hands and parted. In the late afternoon, Stone’s second copy of Dr. Don’s FBI file came back to him from Mike Freeman.
22
During the week Susan had her meeting with Bill Eggers, Julian Whately, and half a dozen other people from Woodman & Weld. She came home aglow.
“That was a real eye-opener for me,” she said.
“What did they recommend?”
“They want me to expand at every level of my business—to hire a publicist to ‘heat up’ my name, as they put it, to hire four people over the next year to supervise projects and report to me. They want me to buy the building in Wandsworth where my upholsterers are based and turn another floor into a draperies and fabrics workshop, and they’ll arrange financing. They’ve suggested that I design my own line of upholstered furniture and develop a line of slipcovers that fit the pieces. They want me to hire a team of people to go around England and France, buying antique furniture and objets d’art and use another floor of the building to warehouse them. They reckon I can get quadruple what I pay for them, if I buy judiciously. And once this is all working, they want me to do a deal with a chain of high-end shops, who would carry my fabrics, towels, and bathroom accessories. The mind boggles!”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Of course.”
“Hire somebody really good to be your chief operating officer, so you can spend your time designing, instead of managing.”
“What a good idea! I’m going to be a very busy woman!”
Stone winced. Had he created a monster? She certainly wasn’t going to have much time for him.
“They also think that being the production designer on Peter’s film would be a wonderful showcase, and I’ve already done the perfect house for the project—yours!”
She left him to go and make phone calls to London.
—
Very early on Friday morning, Fred collected Viv Bacchetti from her apartment, then came for Stone and Susan. They were at Teterboro before rush hour, and were soon taxiing to the runway. Pat Frank’s people had already done his flight planning and were predicting winds that would take him to Windward Hall nonstop, after St. John’s.
The two women sat in the rear of the airplane and chatted, until Susan had to make satphone calls to her office. They refueled at St. John’s, Newfoundland, then set off for England. Once Stone was at flight level 410, he picked up the predicted 100-knot tailwinds, and the range ring showed Windward well within its boundaries. Settled en route, Stone read the Times, then opened a book of New York Times Sunday crosswords, the perfect long-distance flying companion: look at a clue, write down the answer, do an instrument scan. He got into a rhythm.
They flew across the Atlantic, and ATC vectored him to the GPS instrument approach. They touched down at dusk, ready to stretch their legs.
Stan met them, towing a trailer for their luggage behind the Land Rover, and drove them to the house. They joined the kids and the Barnetts in the library for before-dinner drinks, then adjourned for Stone’s first dinner in his new dining room.
Peter and Susan sat next to each other and talked animatedly about his upcoming film. He had completed a first draft of the script and was having the office make a copy for her to study and come up with ideas.
They were back in the dining room for brandy and coffee when Stone’s cell phone vibrated on his belt. He checked the caller ID and found it blocked. “Hello?”
“It’s your neighbor across the river,” Felicity said.
“Hang on.” Stone excused himself from the conversation, went to a corner of the room, and sank into a chair. “How are you? I was sorry not to see you at Charles’s big party.”
“And I was sorry to miss it, but the Muddle East claimed that whole weekend. I understand he’s returning from his honeymoon early next week.”
“I hope they had a good time,” Stone said.
“I expect so.”
Stone thought he detected something troubled in her voice. “Is there something you want to tell me, Felicity?”
She took a deep breath. “Well, yes, there is. It appears that you’re going to have some less-than-desirable neighbors, unless we can do something about it.”
“Neighbors where?”
“Apparently, Sir Richard Curtis’s widow, next door to you, has been approached by estate agents and is considering selling the property. She had thought to sell it to an institutional buyer, like a school or perhaps even a nunnery.”
“Of those choices I think I would prefer a nunnery for a neighbor,” Stone said. “At least they would live quietly.”
“At the moment, that seems the most unlikely buyer,” Felicity said. “As it turned out, the estate agents she consulted had had a request in hand for several weeks from a different kind of organization, which now seems, to the agents, an ideal buyer.”
“What kind of organization?”
“A cult, I believe.”
Stone sat up straight. “What is its name?”
“The Chosen Few.”
23
Stone froze. “What did you say?”
“A cult, called the Chosen Few. Do you know them?”
“Better than I’d like to,” Stone said. He explained about Peter’s film and the recent brushes with the group. “I read their leader’s FBI file—Dr. Don Beverly Calhoun—and it was not pretty.”
“Perhaps I should speak to the Home Secretary about them,” Felicity said. “He might find them undesirable enough to keep them out of the country.”
“What a good idea,” Stone said.
“In the meantime, however, I think we should direct our attention to torpedoing any offer they might make for the Curtis estate. I know the widow, Glynnis. Perhaps I’ll give her a call and alert her to the nature of the Chosen Few.”
“I would be very grateful if you could do that. Will you let me know her reaction?”
“Certainly.”
“I must go, now. Peter, Ben Bacchetti, and their entourage are staying here, and I have to let them entertain me.”
“I’ll speak to you tomorrow. Good night.”
“Good night.” Stone hung up.
“Anything wrong, Dad?” Peter asked.
“Not yet,” Stone replied.
—
Stone was finally able to lure Susan into the master suite for the night and for a late breakfast, as well. They were tired from their flight and had slept in.
“I like your new beds,” she said.
“You are welcome there anytime at all.”
The phone rang. “Hello?”
“Stone,” Felicity said, “I’ve spoken to Glynnis Curtis, and the news is not good. She learned after Richard’s death that he was not as well off as she had thought—bad investments, or something—and she feels that the only way she can secure her future is to sell the estate as soon as possible. The Chosen Few people saw the property yesterday, and this morning she received a written offer of twenty-two million pounds.”
“Did you mention the possibility of the group’s presence being found unacceptable to the government?”
“I did, and she doesn’t give a damn. They’ll pay cash and complete quickly, and then it will be their problem.”
“Then what can we do? Can we object to the sale?”
“Possibly, if there is something in the zoning laws that would make them undesirable, but I know of an estate not ten miles away that is o
ccupied by a religious sect something like your Amish, in the States. I think there is only one way to stop them in their tracks.”
“And what is that?”
“Buy it yourself.”
“Christ in heaven, Felicity! I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can, Stone. When you were consulting with my service some years back I ordered a background investigation of your character and assets, so I know what you inherited from Arrington, and I know that your capital has grown since that time. I also know that you are the sole trustee of your son’s trust, which is even larger than your holdings, so you could buy it as an investment for the trust.”
“Let me get back to you,” Stone said.
“I’ll pick you up in an hour. We have an appointment with Lady Curtis to view the place.” She hung up.
Stone put down the phone.
“You look as if someone has just punched you in the gut,” Susan said. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Stone said.
—
Felicity showed up on time in a Jaguar saloon, and they got in. “Now listen to me, Stone,” Felicity said, spinning the car around and pointing it down the driveway, “I know you don’t want to buy this place, but you’ve got to pretend to be interested, so that we can slow down Glynnis’s decision-making process. She’s frightened of her future and very vulnerable, so the offer from the cult seems to her like a lifeline. She has to be persuaded to think there is another way forward. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” Stone said, “but I am not going to buy this place.”
They turned onto the main road and drove for a mile or so, then turned into a drive marked by an elegant gateway. High stone walls stretched away in both directions.
