Shoot First (A Stone Barrington Novel)

by Stuart Woods

  “Perhaps later,” Stone replied, and Lance managed a chuckle.

  Stone glanced at his watch. “Join me in a drink?”

  “If you have some very, very good single malt, I’d be delighted,” Lance said.

  Stone went to his office bar and pressed the button that exposed the bottles behind the paneling. “I have a Talisker and a Laphroaig,” he said.

  “Oh, the Laphroaig,” Lance replied. “Like it says on the bottle, with just a little cool water.”

  Stone poured the whiskey, added a squirt of water, poured himself a Knob Creek on the rocks, and handed Lance his drink. He sat down. “Lance, what brings you to see me that we couldn’t have talked about on the phone?” He had the odd feeling that the man had choppered in from Langley just to speak to him face-to-face.

  “Oh, I was just in town and thought I’d drop by.” He took a sip of his scotch and smiled a little. “Always goes down well.”

  “Doesn’t it?” Stone didn’t speak further; he just waited for Lance to get around to it.

  Finally, the silence got the best of him. “There is just this one thing,” Lance said. He waited another moment for Stone to respond, decided he wasn’t going to, and continued. “An acquaintance of ours has turned up dead on your doorstep, in Maine. His girlfriend, too.”

  “Not quite on my doorstep,” Stone replied.

  “Ah, yes, I believe he was aboard a small boat.”

  “Correct, and his girlfriend was firing a Bushmaster at my yacht. She broke a window—two windows, in fact.”

  “And was that grounds for terminal action on your part?”

  Stone shook his head. “No, that would have required scratching the varnish.”

  “Quite,” he replied. This was a British locution favored by Lance, who had received his early education at Eton and had never quite gotten over it. In this case it meant either “I believe you,” or perhaps, “I don’t believe you.”

  Stone didn’t much care which.

  “My recollection of your shooting skills does not include an ability to kill two birds with one .223 round,” Lance said.

  “If you had such a recollection, it would be accurate,” Stone replied, “but a guest who practices that sort of thing happened to be aboard.”

  “And armed.”

  “Quite,” Stone replied.

  Lance smiled his small smile again. “May one ask, with what?”

  “With a higher and better iteration of the weapon to which it responded,” Stone said. “I didn’t see the maker’s name on it.”

  “If it was in the possession of our old friend Mr. Rawls, I don’t expect you would have. I really must remember to have someone collect that bird and return it to its natural habitat.”

  “That might turn out to be a dangerous endeavor,” Stone said. “Ed seems to have proprietary feelings toward it.”

  “During the years of his service quite a number of items belonging to his employer seem to have leaped into Mr. Rawls’s hands, as if by magnetism.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Stone replied. “Dare I ask how you came to be acquainted with such vile assassins as Dirty Joe and Jungle Jane?”

  “That is an unkind characterization,” Lance said, with mild reproval. “Mr. Cross served his country well for many years before he took his pension.”

  “And then decided to augment it with the sort of work that earned him his sobriquet,” Stone pointed out.

  “Our alumni sometimes turn a hand to one thing or another in retirement, after acquiring skills in our service.”

  “Tell me,” Stone said, “where would the Agency find such a recruit as Joe Cross?”

  “From a source more common than you might think,” Lance replied. “A reform school warden with an eye for talent.”

  He held out a hand and examined his manicure. “Which brings me to our other subject.”

  “What subject is that?” Stone asked, in spite of himself.

  “One Gino Bellini.”

  “Oh, my God,” Stone said, “don’t tell me he’s one of yours, too.”

  “He was. Gino had a yen for luxuries he couldn’t afford on what we could offer him, so he didn’t serve out his term with us. His gifts found a higher market value elsewhere.”

  “I know a state police officer in Maine who would be very grateful for that knowledge,” Stone said.

  Lance looked at him sharply. “Stone, this conversation, like all of our conversations, is to be held in the strictest confidence. Surely I needn’t explain that to you each time we meet.”

  “So you expect me to sit back and allow Mr. Bellini to assassinate my friend and colleague?”

  Lance’s handsome countenance betrayed a tiny trace of concern. “And who might your friend and colleague be?”

  “You disappoint me, Lance. A crack has appeared in your image of universal knowledge.”

  “I’m afraid I must require an answer to my question,” Lance said.

  “I refer to Meg Harmon.”

  “Ah, the estimable Ms. Harmon! Inventor and entrepreneur!”

  “All of that and more,” Stone replied. “What, isn’t she an old girl of your school?”

  “I fear not. We can’t take on everybody.”

  “And you’re telling me that you weren’t aware that Gino Bellini wanted her dead and recruited Dirty Joe to do the dirty work?”

  “If he did so, he was way, way out of bounds,” Lance said. “I shall have to speak to him about that.”

  “And give him ten of the best with your trusty cane, Headmaster?”

  “Perhaps I had better expand your knowledge of things just a bit,” Lance replied.

  29

  Stone took a sip of his bourbon. “I am always ready to have my knowledge expanded,” he said.

  “Perhaps you—and Ms. Harmon—are unaware that Gino Bellini’s skills were sought by . . . well, let us say, a competitor?”

  “Ms. Harmon’s competitors possess deep skills already. Why would they seek Mr. Bellini’s?”

  “Perhaps they were late to the gala,” Lance replied.

  “How late?”

  “Quite late—so much so that they need a great leap forward and are willing to purchase it at a premium.”

  “From what little I know of Mr. Bellini, he would be unlikely to decline such an offer,” Stone said.

  “He did not, strictly speaking, decline. Let us say that we declined on his behalf.”

  “I didn’t know that you allowed your organization to meddle in the affairs of American businesses,” Stone said.

  “We do not,” Lance replied. “We have not.”

  “Ah,” Stone said, “my knowledge expands. So this business is offshore.”

  “Not a business,” Lance replied. “Shall we call it a nation-state?”

  “Why are we being so delicate, Lance? Why not call it what it is?”

  Lance sighed. “Very well, if you insist—China.”

  “So China doesn’t have a self-driving-car project?”

  “Not one that is sufficiently advanced to compete with Ms. Harmon’s. And an offer that would seem rich to Mr. Bellini would jingle in the pocket of such a buyer.”

  “So they find it cheaper to buy the technology than to originate it?”

  “They would, if we allowed it.”

  “And how do you prevent such a transaction between a foreign government and a private individual?”

  “Now you’re sounding like a lawyer, Stone.”

  “I do not represent either the seller or the buyer.”

  “I hope you can understand that it is not in the interests of the United States government to allow a technology of such inestimable value to fall into the hands of what might charitably be described as a ‘competitor.’”

  “I believe I grasp that. Did our government outbi
d the competition?”

  “Certainly not. My betters would not stoop to dealing with a thief in such an important matter, and a thief is what Mr. Bellini is. I am reliably informed that when he left the employ of Harmony Software, his pockets were filled with proprietary information—designs and specifications—of the product which Ms. Harmon has so recently submitted to the Department of Transportation for certification.”

  “I knew that he was capable of subverting her software, but I was unaware that Mr. Bellini had walked out the door with the crown jewels.”

  “How well you put it, Stone! The crown jewels, indeed!”

  “I am appalled,” Stone said.

  “As well you should be, as an upright and patriotic American!”

  “Then why do I feel that I am about to be taken advantage of?” Stone asked.

  “Stone, your country needs only your assistance. It does not seek advantage of you.”

  Here it comes, Stone thought, reflexively crossing his legs. “What sort of assistance are we talking about, Lance?”

  “Your relationship with Mr. Bellini gives you certain advantages in dealing with him,” Lance replied.

  “Lance, I have no relationship with Gino Bellini. I have never clapped eyes on the man.”

  “Of course you have, you dined at the same restaurant only a few nights ago.”

  “He was not pointed out to me, so I didn’t know he was there until later.”

  “Still, he recognizes you as someone who might deal for Ms. Harmon.”

  “Deal? With someone whose company’s most valued possession he has stolen?”

  “Stone, you are surely aware that when a thief has stolen something of great value—and, incidentally, has been prevented from selling it abroad—his most likely market is the victim of the theft. Or, perhaps, its insurer.”

  Now Stone was beginning to see. “And I just happen to serve on the board of Meg Harmon’s insurer.”

  “My, you are quick, Stone.”

  “And you are just a bit slow, Lance.”

  “Oh? And how is that?”

  “Harmony Software has not filed a claim with the Steele Group, so why would Arthur Steele wish to involve himself in buying back something he has not been asked to pay for?”

  “Do you think he would prefer to pay a claim in full, or to forestall the claim by buying back the stolen goods at a substantial discount?”

  Stone had recently been involved in such a transaction with Arthur Steele involving a stolen work of art. “Perhaps the latter,” he said.

  “With that in mind, don’t you think that Arthur Steele might be willing to get into bed with a whore? I mean, he would just be haggling over the price, would he not?”

  “Lance, I don’t think that is a metaphor Arthur would appreciate.”

  “Then don’t put it to him that way, Stone. Speak to the man as a lawyer and a member of his board.”

  “And who is going to speak to Gino Bellini?”

  “Why, you are, of course. Who better to operate in medias res?”

  Stone did not immediately reply.

  “Oh,” Lance said apologetically, “would you like to look that up?”

  “I know what it means, Lance,” Stone replied with some heat.

  “So you’ll get in touch with both parties?”

  “I don’t exactly have Mr. Bellini’s phone number, Lance.”

  Lance placed a card on the desk. “As a matter of fact, earlier today Mr. Bellini got himself down to the Apple Store and bought a new phone with a new number, and he is likely to be very impressed to learn that you already have it. That might put him off balance just a bit, don’t you think? Give you a leg up in the negotiations?” Stone looked at the card as if it were a coiled viper. Lance pushed it closer to him. “Can’t hurt to give it a try, can it?”

  “Lance, how the hell do you get information like this so quickly?”

  “I have twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixty employees to do the research,” Lance replied.

  “How much did the Chinese offer Bellini for the crown jewels?” Stone asked.

  “That information is a bit more difficult to come by, but I should think somewhere in the region of twenty-five to fifty million dollars,” Lance said. He shrugged. “Just a guess, of course.”

  “I think that Arthur Steele is going to find that a difficult starting point for a negotiation,” Stone replied.

  30

  Stone and Meg had dinner in his study. Bob, now bereft of Sugar’s companionship, dozed fitfully beside the fire.

  “You know,” Meg said, “I think I prefer dining in this room to any restaurant I have ever gone to.”

  “Thank you,” Stone said.

  “I should thank Bob, as well. He makes it feel like home. Why have you deprived the poor dear of Sugar?”

  “Sugar, alas, is a member of a family across the street, and I don’t think they would accede to Bob’s wishes in the matter.”

  “I’m sure Sugar misses Bob, too.”

  “Then she will have to find a way of expressing her desire to her family before we are likely to enjoy her company again.”

  “Maybe dogs should be acquired in braces,” she said.

  “As fond as I am of Bob, I’m not sure I could handle two of him.”

  “Oh, well.”

  “There’s something I have to tell you about,” Stone said.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Not something bad, necessarily, just something I think you would prefer to know about now rather than later, when you might blame me for keeping it from you.”

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Does this knowledge involve another woman?”

  “No, no,” Stone replied quickly. “It’s entirely a business matter.”

  “Oh.”

  “I had a visit from a fr . . . an acquaintance late this afternoon who has managed to learn that Gino Bellini left Harmony Software with more than his talents and skills in his pocket.”

  “What, did he steal the silver?”

  “Worse—the crown jewels.”

  “And what would those consist of?” she asked.

  “All the designs and specifications of your driverless car,” Stone said.

  She stared at him, speechless. “And how did your acquaintance come by that knowledge?” she asked finally.

  “He has a rather large staff devoted to the unearthing of such information.”

  “Do you regard his information as reliable?”

  “About as reliable as one can get in an unreliable world.”

  “But what could Gino do with it? It would take him months, maybe years to build a duplicate car. By that time, we’d be in full production.”

  “His intent, apparently, is to sell the files,” Stone said.

  “But . . .”

  “Abroad.”

  “I’m trying to think who would be a buyer capable of using the design.”

  “Keep thinking.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Russia?”

  “I don’t think they would have the technical capacity. There is a story that, during World War Two, an American bomber crew were forced to land their disabled B-17 Flying Fortress in Siberia. Stalin ordered the airplane confiscated and reproduced, down to the last rivet.”

  “And?”

  “And when the Russians were finished, their airplane weighed so much it could not fly.”

  “I think the Russians have become more technically adept since that time.”

  “And so has the technology become more daunting.”

  “The Koreans might manage it, I suppose.”

  “Think bigger.”

  “The Chinese?”

  Stone nodded.

  “The Chinese have the designs for my car?”

  “No, my acquaintance manage
d to block such a sale. Don’t ask how—I didn’t.”

  “So Gino is looking for another buyer?”

  “It would seem so. My acquaintance has suggested another means of blocking a sale.”

  “How?”

  “Let me ask you—Harmony is insured by the Steele Group, is it not?”

  “We are.”

  “And in the event of a theft of technology, Steele would have to pay?”

  “They would.”

  “What are the limits of your policy, in such a case?”

  Meg wrinkled her brow. “I believe it’s a hundred million dollars. They’d have to lay off half of it to Lloyd’s of London.”

  “My acquaintance has suggested that I approach Arthur Steele with the notion of buying your designs and specifications back from Gino. With Steele’s money.”

  She thought about it for a minute. “What a good idea!” she said, brightening.

  * * *

  —

  STONE MET Arthur Steele for lunch at a club on the Upper East Side of which they were both members, one so low-key that it didn’t have a name. It was called “The Club” by its members.

  Arthur shook out his napkin and spread it over his lap. A waiter took their order and Arthur took another sip of the martini he had started at the bar. “Now, Stone, what’s on your mind, and how much is it going to cost me?”

  “Let me put it this way, Arthur—it’s going to save you seventy-five million dollars.”

  Arthur looked at him suspiciously. “You sound like my late wife telling me how much she saved me, shopping the sales.”

  “She saved you seventy-five million dollars.”

  “I’m not sure I can afford to save that much money.”

  “Well, it beats the alternative,” Stone said.

  “And what is the alternative?”

  Stone explained, as gently as he could, what had occurred, not mentioning any names. “I’d like to offer Bellini twenty-five million. Your company’s liability, as you know, is seventy-five million.”

  “Is Lance Cabot involved in this?” Arthur demanded.

  “Lance is the source of my information, but he is going to great lengths not to be involved in it. He has already managed to prevent a sale to China, but now he is walking backwards as fast as he can.”