Shoot First (A Stone Barrington Novel)

by Stuart Woods

  “We aim to please,” Cal said. “Your boat has had her bottom cleaned and repainted and is back in her berth at the Key West Yacht Club.” Jack had just happened to have a recently widowed client whose late husband’s newish Hinckley T43 Jet Boat was for sale, and Stone had fallen for that, as well as the house.

  Cal took him into the study and showed him how the hidden television set rose out of a cabinet, and switched it on. “Same thing in the master bedroom. By the way, have you seen the weather lately?”

  “Nope,” Stone said. “Just my flight weather for the trip down, which was beautiful.”

  Cal switched to the Weather Channel. “This isn’t so beautiful,” he said. Way down the islands somewhere was a large, angry red spot, labeled HURRICANE IRMA.

  “Well, that’s a long way off, isn’t it?”

  “About a week, maybe less,” Cal replied. “There are several possible routes showing, and at least one of them is right toward Key West. You’d better call your insurance broker and make sure your coverage is in effect. Same for your boat.”

  “I’ll do that,” Stone said, staring at the monster, whose winds were labeled as 185 mph.

  Cal shook his hand and left, and Stone wandered through the house again, thinking about what a great decision he’d made. Except, maybe, for the fucking hurricane. He went back into the study and looked at the hurricane again. It didn’t look any better. He switched off the TV, and it sank back into its cabinet.

  Stone’s cell phone rang and he took it from his holster. The caller’s name was blocked. “Hello?”

  “Hello from Havana,” Holly Barker said. Holly was the secretary of state in President Katharine Lee’s administration and was there for the ceremonial opening of the remodeled and enlarged United States embassy.

  “I hope you’re still on schedule,” he said.

  “I am. I’ll get dropped off around noon tomorrow. I’ll call you just before takeoff. Say, how long is the runway there?”

  “It’s 4,800 feet,” Stone said. “I just landed on it.”

  “I guess it can take a government Gulfstream, then.”

  “It can take a Boeing 737,” he replied, “so yeah, I guess it can handle a Gulfstream.”

  “I assume I won’t need much in the way of clothes in Key West, so I’ll be traveling light.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, you won’t need anything in the way of clothes. Maybe a bikini, in case we have guests.”

  “You sound just the tiniest bit randy,” she said, “though I probably shouldn’t mention that on this line. The ears of the fellas at Cuban intelligence are now pricked up, you should excuse the expression.”

  “We’ll continue this discussion later,” he said. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “When are Dino and Viv arriving?”

  “Couple of days,” he said.

  “Good. Bye-bye.” She hung up.

  * * *

  —

  HE TOOK ONE more stroll around the place, then decided to have dinner at the yacht club bar. He’d stop and have a look at Indian Summer, his new Hinckley, on the way to dinner.

  2

  Stone drove to the Key West Yacht Club as the sun was setting. The air was warm and humid, but driving with the top down kept him comfortable. He parked in the club’s lot, then walked to the outer dock where his Hinckley 43 was berthed. She was well-moored to two pilings on either side, and her electrical cord was plugged into the dock’s supply. He stepped aboard and unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped into the cherry-paneled saloon, which contained seating and two tables that could take six for dinner. Beyond that to the left was the galley with drawers for refrigeration and freezing. To the right were two comfortable, raised chairs facing the instrument panel, which contained two large Garmin screens and all the switches for everything electrical on the motor yacht. Below and forward was a generous head with a glass-enclosed shower. Across the companionway was a small guest cabin that could sleep two friendly people in comfort, and forward was the master cabin, with its large bed, cupboards, and a bulkhead-mounted TV.

  He went back to the center of the boat and inspected the large circuit-breaker panel, to be sure the switches were in the right positions, then he had one more look around, discovering the TV that rose into position for viewing, then he locked the glass door and walked up to the club, feeling a terrible thirst.

  Music greeted him as he entered the crowded bar: a man whose sign introduced him as Bobby Nesbitt, was playing a grand piano and singing Cole Porter. Cal Waters, the builder who had done work on his house, waved him to a stool at the bar and introduced him to his wife, Stacy, a beautiful blonde, and bought him a drink.

  “I trust you found your new house and boat in good order,” Stacy said.

  “In perfect order, thanks to Cal, George, and Anna. George, he knew, worked with Cal on his various projects. The good news was that the yacht club bar stocked Knob Creek bourbon, and he soon found one in his fist.

  “Are you all alone down here?” Stacy asked.

  “Now, don’t start fixing Stone up,” Cal said.

  “You won’t need to,” Stone said. “A lady friend is arriving tomorrow and will be here for as long as I can talk her into staying.”

  Cal pointed at one of the two TVs in the bar, which was tuned to the Weather Channel with the sound muted. “That might run you both out of town,” Cal said. “They’re saying she’s due this weekend.” The TV was displaying a red-coned area that was predicted to contain the hurricane, and Key West was well inside it.

  “I hadn’t planned on that. Are you getting out?” Stone asked.

  “Nope,” Cal replied. “We’ll ride it out at our house. I built it myself, and it’s framed in steel. How about you?”

  “I’m not as brave as you, Cal,” Stone replied. “When it starts threatening, I’ll jump into my airplane and leave for someplace dry. I’ll be glad to give you two a lift.”

  “We have our own airplane,” Cal said, “and if we change our minds we’ll head for our brother-in-law’s house in Santa Fe or our own house in Aspen. We had a bad one, Wilma, a few years ago that flooded this yacht club and most of this side of town. The main road over there was under four feet of water, and the yacht club was a mess. Have you made arrangements to haul your boat?”

  “What do you advise?” Stone said.

  “Well, we have a fifty-foot trawler that George and I converted to a motor yacht, and its berth is up by the club entrance. I think it’ll be all right there. I think yours will be all right, too, if you double up on the lines and put some big fenders out. I’ll find you some space ashore, though, if you’d rather haul her.”

  “I think your advice sounds good,” Stone said. “I’ll stop into the chandlery and pick up some extra gear.”

  “Will you join us for dinner?” Cal asked. “We have a table booked over there.” He nodded to the adjoining room where the piano rested.

  “Thank you, I will,” Stone said.

  They occupied their table and ordered dinner and wine.

  “Tell me about your girl who’s coming,” Stacy said.

  “Her name is Holly; she’s ex-Army, and she used to be chief of police in a town called Orchid Beach, up the East Coast, which is where we met some years ago. She went to work for the government after that. I live in New York, and she’s in Washington, D.C., now, so we don’t see each other as often as we’d like.”

  “Stacy regards any unmarried man as a challenge to her matchmaking skills, so watch out.”

  “Any more like you at home, Stacy?” Stone asked.

  “Three sisters, but I married the last one off to the guy with the house in Santa Fe. Sorry about that.”

  “Oh, well.” Dinner came, and as they were eating, Stone saw two men walk into the club, stop and look around. They were both in their late thirties or early forties and had a hard
look about them.

  “Who are they?” Stone asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cal said. “I was over at the Galleon Marina this afternoon, and they came in aboard a cigarette-style boat, what the drug runners around here used to use. There aren’t so many of them anymore, though. Those two don’t look friendly.”

  The two men were approached by another, younger man, who conversed briefly with them, then they turned and left, looking sour.

  “I guess the commodore didn’t like the look of them, either,” Cal said. “I think they just got the members-only brush-off. Normally, if visitors are members of another yacht club, they’ll be given club privileges for a few days. I had the feeling those guys were looking for somebody but didn’t find him.”

  “Cal is a pretty good judge of human nature,” Stacy said.

  Bobby Nesbitt came back from a drink and asked them for requests.

  “How about some Noël Coward?” Stone asked.

  “Done,” Bobby said. He sat down and started to play “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” then segued into “I’ll See You Again.”

  “He’s good,” Stone said to the Waterses.

  They finished dinner, had a nightcap, then Stone excused himself. “I think I’ll turn in,” he said. “Long flight from New York today.”

  Cal grabbed the check, and Stone said, “Next time is mine.”

  As he walked to his car he heard the throaty rumble of a boat that sounded too big for Garrison Bight, where the yacht club was located. He drove out of the club lot, and as he turned right onto North Roosevelt Boulevard, which ran along the water, he saw a cigarette-style boat of, maybe, fifty feet moving around the bight, looking at boats. There were two men aboard, but Stone couldn’t see them well enough or long enough to know if they were the two men who’d attempted to crash the club.

  As he drove away, he heard a roar as the boat’s engines were briefly revved. It sounded angry.

  3

  Stone drove to the airport the following morning to get a better look at his hangar. As he entered the airport he saw the sheriff’s office, so he parked, went inside and asked for an application for an airport security pass. Shortly, he found himself taking a computer-based course in airport rules, then he was photographed, fingerprinted, and, finally, given his pass, which he was told to wear on a chain around his neck for easy identification.

  Thus armed, he used his new pass to open the security gate, then drove over to his hangar. It was big, almost but not quite big enough for two airplanes. It looked well-built and secure, which relieved him, because he had bought it sight unseen. His cell phone rang. “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Holly said. “Slight misunderstanding with the arrival airport: we’re landing at the Naval Air Station, not Key West International. Better security and more anonymity. It’s on Boca Chica, just north of Key West, and the guard at the gate will have your name. I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

  “Got it,” Stone replied. “I’ll see you there.” He hung up and switched on his GPS in the car, and the route became obvious. Twenty minutes later, he gave his name to the guard at the gate, his car was searched, and he was admitted and told where to park.

  A few minutes later, from his parking spot, he saw a Gulfstream, emblazoned with the legend, “United States of America,” touching down on the runway. He waited in his car, as instructed, until Holly appeared, dressed in jeans, a tanktop, her red hair covered by a head scarf, and dark glasses, followed by a crew member with her carry-on bag. She walked over to the car, avoided hugging or kissing him, and got into the front passenger seat, while Stone and the crewman put her baggage into the trunk.

  Stone got in and drove off toward the gate.

  “I’m sorry to be standoffish,” Holly said, “but I didn’t want to get recognized while throwing myself at a man. I’ll throw myself at you when we get home.”

  “I’ll look forward to it. How’d it go in Cuba?’

  “Oh, it was mostly ceremonial; not a lot else got done.” As the gate opened for them they heard the Gulfstream’s engines restarting.

  “Nice ride,” Stone said.

  “It is, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not Air Force One, but it’s roomy enough for a single girl and her bags. I left my security team aboard; they don’t like that but, from time to time, I insist, and I haven’t been kidnapped by terrorists yet.”

  Stone gave her a little tour of the town, then drove her to the house.

  “That’s convenient,” she said, nodding toward Bare Assets.

  “It would have been, if you hadn’t come.”

  They got out of the car, got her luggage, and went into the house.

  “This is wonderful,” Holly said, as they passed through the house on the way to the master suite.

  “The other half of the dressing room is yours,” Stone said. “You unpack, and I’ll let Anna know we’re ready for lunch.”

  * * *

  —

  AFTER INTRODUCTIONS HAD been made and lunch eaten, they settled onto a sofa in the outdoor living room, shaded by a large awning.

  “There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about,” Holly said. “I need your advice.”

  Stone sipped his iced tea. “Your attorney is at your disposal.”

  “Well, it’s not an attorney-client talk, but it’s just as confidential.”

  “My ears are open and my lips sealed.”

  “I know we’ve talked about spending a lot more time together after Kate’s second term is over . . .”

  “Yes, and I’m looking forward to that.”

  “I’ve been looking forward to it, too,” Holly said, “but something—something rather shocking—has come up.”

  Stone didn’t like the sound of that. “Oh? Have you gotten a better offer?”

  “I’ll let you decide if it’s a better offer,” she said. “Kate invited me to lunch at the White House a few days ago, and we had a serious talk. Will was there, too.”

  “Listen,” Stone said. “I don’t care if she wants you to be the ambassador to Timbuktu for the rest of her term, as long as you come back to me.”

  “What Kate proposed wouldn’t require me to move abroad, just across town.”

  Stone choked on his iced tea.

  “This is all your fault,” she said. “When I made that address to the UN after I’d been shot, with my arm in a sling, that set off something of a firestorm, and I suddenly became a national heroine and an international star.”

  “I remember,” Stone said, dreading what was coming. “And there’s something I should tell you about that attack; perhaps I should have told you sooner.”

  “What?” she asked, looking baffled.

  “Turns out the guy wasn’t shooting at you; he was shooting at me. You just got in the way at the last second, as we were leaving Dino’s apartment house.”

  “Are you telling me that I took a bullet for you?”

  “I’m afraid so. Everyone just assumed it was an assassination attempt.”

  “Who else knows about this?”

  “Dino, Viv, and me; nobody else.”

  Holly began laughing. “This is rich,” she said. “I suddenly became the nation’s heroine because that guy couldn’t shoot straight?”

  “I’m afraid so. However, your heroic behavior was all yours. I had nothing to do with it, so you’re still the nation’s heroine.”

  “Kate would laugh her ass off, if I told her.”

  “I wouldn’t tell her just yet.”

  “Have you guessed?”

  “Maybe. Why don’t you just tell me and put me out of my misery?”

  “Kate and Will, during our lunch—which included one Bloody Mary each—suggested that I would make an excellent president. What’s more, they said they would be willing to back me to the hilt, if I choose to run. Kate and Will think that, with th
eir support, I’d sail through the primaries, and the Republicans haven’t got a great candidate available, so . . .”

  “So, you have to choose between your country and me?”

  Holly took a deep breath. “Not necessarily,” she said. “I was sort of hoping I could have my cake . . .”

  “First Gentleman?” Stone asked.

  “I was afraid you’d put it that way.”

  “Holly, I would be nothing but a liability for you. The press would drag out every escapade, every woman, that’s ever happened to me.”

  “Not if they don’t find out about us until after the election. Then we’d have four years for you to charm the media out of their socks, and I’d get reelected.”

  Stone shook his head. “I’d be no good at it at all.”

  “You’d be great at it. Look how well Will has done in that position.”

  “Will’s an ex-president, and he has a son to look after, and that’s kept them off his back. I have no credentials to match those.”

  “Are you suggesting that I get pregnant?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing of the kind. I have a question, though, and it’s the only one you have to answer.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Do you really want it? Do you have the fire in the belly?”

  Holly’s shoulders sagged. “God help me, I do.”

  “I was afraid of that,” Stone said. “I guess that settles everything.”

  “That’s not all the advice I need,” Holly said. “There’s something else.”

  4

  Stone resettled himself on the sofa and poured them more iced tea from the pitcher on the table before him. “Well, I hope, after that news, there’s something more cheering.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Holly said.

  God, what now? Stone asked himself.

  “Please let me tell you the whole story before you interrupt,” Holly said.