by Stuart Woods
“We have people who are in touch with the state police up there, along with a lot of other police departments. I’m beginning to think we should do something about the security arrangements in your house in Washington.”
“Please don’t bother. My builder is dealing with the fire damage, but it’s mostly just shingle replacements.”
“Perhaps when you have guests who are the subjects of attempts on their lives you should take them to your home in Maine, where the security is built into the house, and Penobscot Bay surrounds you.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Stone said.
“I’ve asked Holly to have her people take over the current protection of your New York house,” Lance said.
“The last time you did that, you lost two men,” Stone reminded him.
“That was a measure of the threat,” Lance said. “I do not anticipate anything like that in these circumstances. After all, we’re dealing with criminals, not political zealots.”
“I very much hope you’re right,” Stone said. “Thank you for the extra security, Lance.”
“You are very welcome. They are outside your house now, watching your beautiful new car being hauled away. I’ve heard so much about the Blaise—you must let me drive it the next time I’m in New York.”
“Maybe,” Stone said.
“Goodbye, Stone.” Lance hung up.
Stone hung up and sent an e-mail to Holly. Thank you for your help. I hope you are well and happy.
A few minutes later, he got a reply. I’m well, thank you. Watch your ass.
She’s well, he reflected, but she didn’t mention happy.
42
Joan came into his office. “Okay, the car is on its way, there’s nothing I can do to protect it now.”
“We’ll have to leave it to the gods,” Stone said.
“What did you think of the special section on the auto show in the Sunday Times?” she asked.
“I didn’t see it,” Stone said. “It must not have been included in the Connecticut edition.”
“I thought not,” she said, handing it to him.
Stone put it aside. “I’ll read it later.”
Joan picked it up and handed it to him again. “I think you’d better read it now.”
Stone picked up the section and there, taking up the front page above the fold, was a photograph of Marcel with one of his Blaises.
“Be sure and read all of it,” she said, then went back to her office.
Stone began to read, and two paragraphs down, his jaw dropped. Marcel duBois, on a rare visit to New York, is staying at the home of his friend, attorney Stone Barrington, in Turtle Bay. There followed a long interview with Marcel recounting their meeting in Paris. Stone had an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Joan buzzed. “I’ve got Mike Freeman on one and Lance Cabot on two,” she said.
“Tell Mike I’ll call him right back.” He pushed two. “Yes, Lance?”
“I’ve just seen the city edition of yesterday’s New York Times,” Lance said drily. “Is this your idea of securing Marcel duBois’s safety?”
“I knew nothing about it, Lance. I was in Connecticut, remember? It didn’t appear in the national edition. However, I don’t see that it much matters, as Majorov and his friends already know where to find us.”
“Granted,” Lance said, “but suppose the threat lies elsewhere? Marcel has just imparted to that part of the population of New York City who can read, which I assume is most of them, exactly where to find him—at the auto show tomorrow and at your home the rest of the time. All that’s missing is a photo of Helga draped nude over the hood of his car.”
“I’m not happy about it either, but what can I do?”
“Move?”
“Thanks to you, we’re so well protected here.”
“Good luck, Stone.” Lance hung up.
Joan buzzed back. “Mike’s on line one. He insisted on waiting.”
Stone pressed the button. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mike.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Mike asked pleasantly.
“I know, I know, but I didn’t know until a moment ago. Do I have to explain?”
“It’s too late for explanations,” Mike said. “We’re meeting at four in Bill Eggers’s office to sign the contracts. Try and keep Marcel alive until then.”
“I’ll do my best,” Stone said. Mike hung up.
Marcel and Helga walked into Stone’s office, arm in arm. “I’m back from my meeting,” Marcel said.
“And I’m off shopping,” Helga chimed.
“Please have the car back by three-thirty,” Stone said. “Marcel and I have an important meeting.”
“Of course, my dear,” she replied, waving over her shoulder as she headed for the door.
“Please have a seat, Marcel,” Stone said, and Marcel took a chair across the desk.
“My cars arrived at Stewart International this morning and are on their way to the Javits Center,” Marcel said, then he squinted at Stone. “You look upset. Is something wrong?”
Stone handed him the auto show section. “Have you seen this?”
“Oh, yes, they showed it to me at the meeting this morning. Everyone was thrilled.”
“So is anyone who might like to do you harm,” Stone said, trying to keep the scold out of his voice.
Marcel’s eyebrows shot up. “Ahhhh,” he breathed. “I see your point, if a bit too late.”
“We are now imprisoned in the house,” Stone said, “until Helga comes back with the car.”
“Well, there are worse places to be imprisoned,” Marcel said. “May I borrow something from your library?”
“It is at your disposal,” Stone said. “Anything you like.”
Marcel got up. “See you for lunch?”
“Of course.”
“What time?”
“Twelve-thirty?”
“In the kitchen?”
“Yes.”
Marcel departed.
Joan came and stood in his doorway, arms crossed. “I take it I’d better have my .45 at the ready.”
“Please do.”
“Have you noticed how quiet it is in this house with the new windows?”
“Yes, I have.”
“I’m having trouble with it. I can’t even hear traffic going by in the street.”
“I know how you feel. It’s quieter than the Connecticut house, but we’ll get used to it.”
“Why do people want to harm Marcel?”
“They want his business—ah, businesses. They figure that Marcel will be easier to deal with if he’s dead.”
“And Helga? Is she in business with Marcel? Is that why these people want her dead?”
“No, Helga had a little social problem in Paris that offended certain people.”
“Dare I ask?”
“You dare not. Be careful who you let in the office door.”
Joan looked over her shoulder. “Funny you should mention that.”
“Something wrong?”
“Federal Express just pulled up.”
“I have it on good authority that they are harmless,” Stone said.
“Trouble is, they delivered an hour ago. They’ve never shown up twice on the same morning.”
Stone opened his desk drawer and rummaged around until he came up with his little Walther .380.
“I guess it’s time to unearth my .45,” Joan said.
“Don’t try firing through the window,” Stone said. “The glass is very thick and heavily armored.”
“Well, I’m not opening the door,” Joan said, starting for her desk.
Stone followed close behind.
43
Stone stood in the doorway to Joan’s office, the Walther in his hand but out of si
ght. All that the man approaching the door would be able to see was the left side of Stone’s body. Joan took the .45 from her desk drawer, racked the slide, and flipped off the safety. The doorbell rang. “Yes?” Joan said over the intercom.
“Federal Express,” the man replied.
Stone could see that he was wearing dark trousers, a dark shirt, and a FedEx baseball cap—not a standard uniform.
“Just leave it outside,” Joan said.
“Can’t. I’ll need a signature.”
Stone could see that he had a clipboard under his arm and a small FedEx box in the other hand.
“I can’t come to the door right now,” Joan said. “Deliver it later.”
“Can’t. I’m on my way back to my office.”
“Then we’ll just have to live without it,” Joan said.
“I can see a guy standing in there. He can sign for it.”
“I’m sorry, he doesn’t know how to write his name.”
Then Stone saw that the man was not holding the box in his hand; his hand was inside the box. He held it in front of him and the box exploded, but the paned door he was aiming at did not. Now a 9mm semiautomatic pistol could be seen in his hand. He fired twice more at the door, then stepped sideways and fired into Joan’s window with the same effect. Stone had time to think that he could hardly hear the gunfire.
“Where the hell are the outside guards?” Stone asked.
“Good question,” Joan said from under her desk.
Then Stone heard other shots softly firing, and the fake FedEx man spun around and collapsed in a heap. The FedEx truck suddenly rocketed forward and out of Stone’s line of vision.
Stone walked to the door and opened it. Two men in civilian clothes were making sure the deliveryman was dead. “His accomplice just drove away in the FedEx van,” Stone said to them. “Call it in.”
“Yessir,” one of the men said, then raised a fist to his lips and spoke into it. When he had finished, he looked at Stone. “We’ve got this,” he said. “The body will be out of here in a minute and a half.”
“I’ll time you,” Stone said, “and thanks for your help.” He closed the door and went back into Joan’s office. “You can come out now,” he said to her.
Joan crawled out from under the desk and stood up, brushing her skirt with the hand that wasn’t holding her .45. “I see they’re on top of it,” she said, looking out the window. The two men were zipping the corpse into a body bag. A van outside opened its door, and they shoved the bag inside and watched it close. Then they returned to wherever their posts had been before the incident, and the van drove away. All was as before.
“That was smart of you to notice that FedEx came twice,” he said to Joan.
“Hard to miss,” she said, popping the magazine on her .45, then racking the slide and returning the ejected cartridge to the magazine before putting the weapon back into her desk drawer.
Stone returned to his desk and put the Walther into a drawer containing less stuff to hide it from him. He sat down and reviewed the incident in his head. The windows had worked; the bullets had left nothing more than little scratches where they had struck, and everything was still intact. Not a bad morning, if you didn’t count the corpse.
• • •
A couple of hours later, as he was about to go to the kitchen for lunch, Joan buzzed him. “Holly on line one.”
Stone picked up. “Hi,” he said. “Your men did an excellent job.”
“Thank you. I thought you’d like to know that the dead guy was carrying no identification, and his body contained no distinguishing marks. His dental work, however, was Russian and Eastern European. He’ll be in potter’s field by sundown.”
“Very efficient,” Stone said.
“How did the armored glass work?”
“Like a charm. I hope they don’t come back with a bazooka.”
“Lance will be thrilled to know,” she said. “Is Joan all right?”
“She’s just fine. Her .45 is back in her desk, and I hear computer keys clicking.”
“Give her my best,” Holly said. “You, too.”
“I’ll do that.”
She hung up.
Stone found Marcel in the kitchen, sipping a glass of white wine. “I like your California wines,” he said. “Of course, if I served them to my guests in Paris, they would be outraged.”
“No doubt,” Stone said.
“The cars have reached the Javits Center,” Marcel said, “and they do not have any bombs installed. I have had them place your car on a revolving stand high enough so that the unwashed will not get so much as a fingerprint on it.”
“Thank you.”
“And Mike’s people took charge of my Maybach at the airport and drove it to God-knows-where to start work on it. I am very impressed with Mike and Strategic Services. Do you think I should buy it?”
Stone laughed. “I warned Mike that you might try, but I don’t think he’ll want to sell. It’s privately held, but one of these days I suspect he’ll take it public and make a killing on his stock.”
“Ah, well, I suppose there are some things I can’t own.”
“You seem to do quite well at owning things,” Stone remarked. “How many companies do you have?”
“About a dozen outright, major positions in about sixty others.”
Helene served lunch.
“Marcel, you’ve spoken of your son, but never of your wife.”
“She never recovered from Blaise’s death,” Marcel said sadly. “She went into an immediate decline and died less than a year later. She was forty-six.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“You have had a loss, too,” Marcel said.
“Yes, but my son is well.”
“What does he do with himself?”
“He will graduate from the Yale School of Drama soon, then go to California to work in the film business.”
“Ah! I hear that is like swimming in a shark tank,” Marcel said.
“He’s going to have to figure that out for himself, but his partner—Dino’s son, Ben—is going to be a very smart businessman, I think. The two of them together should make their way in Hollywood just fine, and Peter’s girlfriend, Hattie, will be there to keep their feet on the ground.”
“I shall look forward to seeing their films,” Marcel said.
“So shall I,” Stone said, glancing at his watch. Three more hours before Helga was due back.
44
It was three-thirty, and Helga had not returned from shopping. Stone was loath to take a taxi, given the events of the morning. He went upstairs to his dressing room, opened his safe, and removed a compact .45 automatic and its holster. It had been custom-made by Terry Tussey and weighed only twenty-one ounces, compared to the thirty-nine of the standard Colt.
With the gun on his belt, he went down to the living room in time to see the Bentley pull up outside. Stone called the car and told Philip not to allow Helga out until they were in the garage with the door closed.
He collected Marcel and went to the garage. Helga was emptying the trunk of many shopping bags, and Philip was taking them into the house.
“I did much damage,” she said to Stone.
Stone kissed her and motioned for Philip to get behind the wheel. “We’re running late,” he said.
They arrived in the underground garage of the Strategic Services building and took the elevator to the top floor, where Mike Freeman greeted them. “I think we’re all ready,” he said.
He led them into the conference room where Bill Eggers and two French lawyers awaited. Eggers was reading the last page of the contract.
“Looks good to me,” he said.
“I read it online this morning,” Marcel said. “I’m ready to sign if you are.”
“We are,” Stone said.
>
“I have the signatures of the board on a draft,” Mike said, “so you and I can sign for the company.”
They sat down, and Stone took out his pen. “I think we’ll remember this moment for a long time,” he said, and signed three copies of the document. He passed it to Mike, who signed, then Marcel inked them, as well. The copies were distributed, then Marcel looked around. “Have we any further business to conduct?” he asked.
“Nothing else,” Mike said.
Marcel stood. “Then, if you will excuse me, I would like to return to have a last look at our area of the auto show. Stone, would you like to come?”
“Thank you, no, Marcel. I’ll see it tomorrow at the opening. Please take the car.”
The meeting broke up, and Mike got onto the elevator and rode down with Stone. “We have special transportation for you,” he said. “The first of our newest armored vehicle.” The elevator arrived at the garage level, and they got out.
A large Mercedes van awaited them, its windows mirrored, and the side door slid open. Inside the richly furnished cabin four seats, two forward and two aft, awaited. Lance Cabot was sitting in one of them, and Rick LaRose was in another.
“Welcome aboard, Stone,” Rick said. “Have a seat.”
“I’ll leave you two gentlemen to your trip,” Mike said.
The door slid silently shut, and the van began to move.
Stone shook both the men’s hands. “Welcome, Rick,” Stone said. “What brings you to New York?”
Rick looked at Lance, who ignored him.
“What do you think of our new conveyance?” Lance asked.
“Very handsome,” Stone replied. “I hear people are driving these things to the Hamptons for weekends.”
“Not exactly like this one,” Lance said. “It’s quite heavily armored.”
“Mike says it’s his newest effort.”
“Indeed. We’ll make another stop,” Lance said. “Then I will chopper to Langley, and the van will drop you at home.”
“All right.”
“It’s a good opportunity for us to talk, Stone,” Lance said.
“We’ve been doing quite a lot of that the past week,” Stone reminded him.
