by Stuart Woods
“They are. And it’s hard to meet a woman of a suitable age who doesn’t have one lingering somewhere in the background.”
“I suppose it is. Still, you seem to manage in that arena. Seems I have a couple of trusted aides who used to help out.”
“You do. I suppose their country needed them more than I did.”
“That’s a healthy way to look at it.”
“Why mope? It doesn’t do any good.”
“By the way, I haven’t thanked you personally for meeting with three of my candidates for the high court.”
“I was happy do so, and I quite liked two of them.”
“Yes, well, nobody liked the third very much. I’ve made my choice, which will be announced in a few days, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.”
“I’m sure I won’t.”
“The court’s first gay member.”
“That we know about.”
She laughed. “Quite right.” She got to her feet, toweling her hair. “Well, I’ve got a meeting with an important Japanese gentleman in a couple of hours. I suppose I’d better go let somebody do something with my hair.”
Stone got to his feet and gave her a peck on the cheek. “You’ll knock him dead.”
“From your lips to God’s ear,” she said, and strolled back toward her cottage.
—
Before Stone could get into the water, Gala arrived in a robe. “Who was that woman I saw you with?” she asked, shedding the robe.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said.
“Was that really she?”
“It was. Seems somebody was using her pool.”
“I’ll add her name to the list of people I’ve almost met.”
“We’ll arrange a proper introduction on some other occasion.”
She dove into the pool, and Stone followed her, keeping pace with her laps. Soon they tired and got out.
“I’d like some lunch,” Gala said. “Join me?”
“Dino and I lunched at the Bel-Air.” He picked up a phone and handed it to her, and she ordered a club sandwich.
“By the way, I ran into the chairman of the membership committee while we were waiting to tee off and learned that Peter, Ben, and I have been elected to membership there.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. We also learned that the committee had rejected Boris.”
“Oh, God, another blow to his ego. Can we all survive it?”
“We had a visit, in the middle of our round, from two Russian gentlemen bearing greetings from him.”
“Did anybody get hurt?”
“I threatened them with a sand wedge, and they went away.”
“Good.”
“And the membership chairman had a personal visit from Boris, which resulted in his being thrown out of the place.”
“Boris isn’t having a very good week, is he?”
“No, he’s not, and it’s going to get worse, unless he learns to contain himself.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” she said. “Maybe today would be a good time to go back to Santa Fe.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am. Distance has always been the best tool when dealing with Boris.”
“I’m unaccustomed to running from my enemies.”
“You can put that on me. I can fly commercial, if you’re not ready to leave.”
“If you’ll go and pack now, we can be there for cocktails.”
She held his head in her hands and kissed him. “Thank you, my dear. I will feel ever so much better with every mile I can put between Boris and me.”
Stone dispatched her to get ready, then he called the airport and ordered fuel, got a weather briefing, and filed a flight plan.
Dino came out of the house. “I hear you’re flying back to Santa Fe.”
“We are. Gala would like some distance between her and her ex.”
“Good idea.”
“Why don’t you come with us? Spend a couple of days?”
“I think we will. When are we leaving?”
“In an hour?”
“Good.”
9
The four of them, plus Bob, arrived in Santa Fe and piled into Gala’s Range Rover, which her housekeeper had left for her, driving away the Aston Martin.
They arrived at Gala’s house, and she installed the Bacchettis in the guesthouse, then headed toward the kitchen.
Stone was toting in their bags when he heard a crash, followed by a scream. He rushed into the kitchen, ready for a fight. Gala was cowering by the pantry door, and the place was a mess.
“It was a bear!” Gala shouted. “I saw him rush around the corner when I screamed.”
Dino ran into the kitchen, his gun drawn. “What is it?”
“A visit from Papa Bear,” Stone said. “He stayed for lunch.” He waved a hand.
“Jesus,” Dino said. “He wasn’t very neat, was he?”
“Can you take a look outside and see if he’s gone? You’re the one with the weapon.”
“Sure.” Dino trod carefully through the mess and had a look outside. “Gone,” he said, holstering his gun.
Stone hung up the phone. “I talked with Ed Eagle. He’s calling somebody from the state wildlife service, and he gave me the name of a commercial cleaning business.”
—
Finally, they were able to sit down for a drink, while the cleaners did their work. One of them came in, carrying a bucket. “Here’s the problem,” he said, holding up a broken bottle bearing a label. “A quart of honey.”
“I buy honey in little jars,” Gala said. “I like a spoonful in my tea, but I’ve never bought a quart.”
“It was smeared on your back door,” the cleaner said, “then the jar was broken outside. That brought the bear.”
Gala put her face in her hands. “It’s Boris,” she said.
—
Later, an official of the wildlife service arrived and took a report. Stone showed him the remains of the broken honey jar.
“That would do it,” he said. “She loves her honey.”
“She?”
“And two cubs,” the man said. “I found their tracks outside. We’re going to have to organize a hunt. She’s got a den somewhere up in the hills, and we’ll have to anesthetize her and the cubs and take them up into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains for resettlement.”
“She won’t come back?”
“There’s no telling,” the man said. “We do the best we can. She’ll remember where she found the honey, though.” He gave Stone his card and left.
“I didn’t hear you volunteering for the hunt,” Dino said.
“I’m a city boy. What do I know about bear hunting? I’d just be in the way.”
“Problem is, nobody’s hunting Boris,” Gala said.
“Once we get the house secured, you come back to New York with us,” Stone said. “You deserve a rest from that guy.”
“Invitation gratefully accepted,” she replied.
—
They spent the following day getting the kitchen door replaced and the alarm system repaired, then took off for New York.
At Stone’s house Gala seemed to relax for the first time since leaving L.A. Then she got a phone call; she listened for a moment, thanked the caller, and hung up in tears. “That was a friend of mine who’s a real estate agent in Santa Fe. She heard that Boris is house hunting.”
“In Santa Fe?”
“In Tesuque,” she replied. “He wants to move into my neighborhood.”
“I’ll call Ed Eagle and ask him to get a temporary restraining order against Boris,” Stone said.
“Will that work?”
“I’ll find out.” Stone called Ed and had a long conversation with him, then hung up. “Ed
’s going to try for an order that will keep him out of a two-mile radius from your home. If he can get it, and he thinks he can, that will keep him out of Tesuque.”
“For now.”
“Now is what we have to deal with.”
“I can’t impose on your hospitality forever.”
“You’re not imposing.” Stone had a thought. “You expressed an interest in seeing my house in England. Still interested?”
“Oh, yes! Boris would never figure that out.”
“You can bring your computer and work there.”
“Perfect!”
“Let me make some calls and see if we can catch a ride on a bigger jet. It’s kind of a trek in mine—we’d have to spend a night in Newfoundland or Ireland to break up the trip.”
“However you want to do it is fine with me.”
—
It took two calls before he found that the Strategic Services jet was flying to Paris the following day and could drop them in the south of England. Gala was thrilled with the news.
Stone had another thought. “Gala, do you know what kind of cell phone Boris uses?”
“He always gets the latest iPhone.”
“Do you have the number?”
She recited it from memory.
Stone called his tech guy, Bob Cantor.
“Hello.”
“Bob, it’s Stone. You told me once that you had been working on some kind of tracer software for cell phones.”
“I did, and it’s up and running.”
Stone gave him Tirov’s number. “Can you arrange for me to get warnings if that phone is anywhere near me, like in England?”
“Sure. I’ll send the guy an irresistible e-mail, and if he opens it, it will plant the software on his phone. At what range do you want the warning to be effective?”
“Couple of hundred miles?”
“Consider it done.”
“Thanks, Bob.” He hung up.
“What was that about?” she asked.
“Bob will arrange for us to get a warning if Boris gets within two hundred miles of us.”
“How can he do that?”
“Don’t ask.”
“I won’t.”
“You might want to do a little shopping for England while you’re in New York. It’ll be pleasant this time of year, but it’s not L.A. or Santa Fe.”
“You mean I’ll need a raincoat?”
“That’s what I mean. A sweater or two, as well. The weather is, well, changeable.”
Gala grabbed her purse. “Bloomingdale’s, here I come.”
She kissed him goodbye and fled the house.
Stone thought he might take a few extra things, as well.
10
Gala finished her shopping at Bloomingdale’s, then got a cab to the Ralph Lauren store at Madison and Seventy-second Street, thinking she would buy Stone a gift for his kindness to her. She looked around the antique jewelry department on the ground floor and found a handsome silver flask that looked big enough to hold a bottle of Knob Creek. She was waiting for it to be gift wrapped when she looked up and saw her ex-husband walk through the front door. She froze and tried to keep her face expressionless.
“Well, hello there,” Boris said, striding toward her.
She held up an arm to fend him off. “Please,” she said.
“Please, what? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“I am not.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you with your encounter with the bear,” he said. “Those things can be a real nuisance, I’m told. Once they associate your place with food, they come back over and over. I’d keep a shotgun handy, if I were you.”
“A shotgun might be a very good idea,” she said.
“I hope you weren’t thinking of me when you said that.”
“What I think is no longer your business.”
“What brings you to New York? Not running from me, I hope, because you can’t. I’ll always know where you are, and I’ll always be there, if I like.”
“I’m afraid Tesuque is no longer welcoming to you.”
“What?”
“Just don’t try buying in the village.”
“Why, Gala, do you think you can stop me from living where I like?”
“Wait and see.”
“That sounds a very interesting threat.”
“Not a threat, a promise.”
“We’ll see. I keep track of you, you know. It’s easy in this electronic age.”
The salesclerk brought her package, and she signed for it and left Boris standing there.
“You’ll be hearing from me!” he called after her as the door closed behind her.
She got into a cab, thinking. “Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street,” she said to the driver.
He dropped her and she took the elevator downstairs to the Apple store. Half an hour later she left with a new number in her cell phone, and on the way home she composed an e-mail to a list of dear friends, giving them the new number and asking that they keep the number confidential.
—
Stone was at his desk when she got back.
“A productive shopping trip?” he asked.
“Yes and no.”
“How’s that?”
“I found the things I need for the trip, but I also ran into guess who at Ralph Lauren.”
“I have to guess?”
“It won’t be hard.”
Stone’s face fell. “Not what’s-his-name!”
“One and the same.”
“How did . . . Never mind, I think I know how he tracked you.”
“How?”
“My airplane. There’s an app that will allow you to follow any aircraft’s track across the country. He would have tracked us to Santa Fe, then here.”
“He has an airplane, too—a Learjet.”
“What’s his tail number?”
She told him.
Stone got on his iPhone and tracked the number. “It’s at Teterboro, at Jet Aviation, where I park.”
“He usually goes somewhere else on the field—Atlantic Aviation, I think.”
“Not this time. He thinks he has us in his crosshairs, but he doesn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’re leaving tomorrow on the Strategic Services jet, a Gulfstream 650, and he won’t be expecting that. He’ll end up just watching their hangar, where I keep my airplane, until he gets tired of it. We’ll be in England before he figures it out.” He picked up the phone and called Mike Freeman at Strategic Services.
“You ready for your flight tomorrow, Stone?”
“I am, Mike. Would you let your pilot know that we’d like to board in the hangar, before the airplane is towed out?”
“Sure. Somebody tailing you?”
“Probably a couple of Russian gentlemen.”
“I’ll see what I can do about that.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that. Will you be flying with us tomorrow?”
“Me and Viv Bacchetti. We have business in Paris and Rome.”
“Why don’t you stop by my place for a couple of days, since we’re landing there anyway.”
“Wish I could, but duty calls. Maybe on the way back, if you’re there long enough. We’ll be on the continent for a week to ten days. One of our stops is attending the opening of the new Arrington, in Rome. Will you be coming down for that?”
“It’s a thought. Let’s see how it goes.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.” He hung up.
“We’ll board tomorrow in the hangar, protecting us from prying eyes. My friend Mike Freeman is coming with us, and so is Viv Bacchetti, who works for him.”
“How nice. Oh, and here’s a little something for you.” She handed him a gift-wrapped package.<
br />
Stone untied the ribbon and opened it. “Wow! That will hold a whole bottle!” He walked to the bar, opened a new bottle of Knob Creek, found a little silver funnel and filled the flask. “Perfect!” He gave her a big kiss.
“I thought it was you.”
“And you were right.” He set the flask in his briefcase. “Come on, you haven’t had the tour yet.”
He showed her the living room, dining room, and his study, then took her up to the master suite, where Fred had already deposited her luggage in her dressing room.
“What are we doing for dinner tonight?”
“I think we’ll have it here, in my study, just the two of us.”
“Then I don’t have to dress?”
“You may wear as little as you like.”
“Well, no, not if someone is serving us.”
“A dressing gown will do.”
“I think that’s called ‘slipping into something more comfortable.’”
“I believe so.”
“What time are we departing tomorrow?”
“We taxi at eight AM sharp, which means we’ll have to leave the house at six-thirty, to allow for rush-hour traffic between here and Teterboro. Breakfast at five?”
“If you can wake me.”
“I’ll find a way.”
11
Fred drove them to Teterboro the following morning in the Bentley, and they used the back entrance to the Strategic Services hangar to avoid walking to the airplane through Jet Aviation.
The crew welcomed them and took their luggage, and shortly, Mike and Viv were aboard, along with some other Strategic employees. A tractor towed the big business jet out of the hangar and onto the ramp, and the crew, having already run through their initial checklists, immediately started the engines. Moments later they were taxiing.
Mike came and sat down next to Stone. “You were right about having a tail. Two large Russian gentlemen. My people discouraged them, and they have no idea that you’re on this aircraft.”
“Thank you, Mike, that’s a relief.”
“The crew has requested an expedited departure. There’s not a lot of traffic this morning, so we’ll be wheels-up shortly.” As he spoke the airplane made a turn and began its takeoff roll; a moment later the nose lifted, and they heard the sound of the landing gear coming up.
