by Stuart Woods
“We’re going to sleep in the master suite, which has two bathrooms and two dressing rooms, then we’ll have a room for Ben, when he and his girl visit, one for guests, and I’ll turn one into my study. You can have the library.”
“How much did you . . . Oh, never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“You’re going to love it.”
“When do we have to move in?” Dino asked.
“When I say so, and not before. It has to be painted, and one or two other things done, then it has to be furnished, and when it’s ready, I’ll tell you, and we’ll move in. And I put your apartment on the market today.”
“Oh, God, what if it doesn’t sell before we have to move?”
“So what? You don’t have a mortgage payment. Anyway, the broker thinks it will go fast.”
“I’m being uprooted,” Dino said.
“You’re being transplanted,” Viv replied, “and to a better home.”
Dino excused himself to go to the men’s room.
“What Dino doesn’t know,” Viv said, “is I bought the apartment the day after we got back from Connecticut. The co-op board approved me the following day, we closed quickly, and it’s already been painted. I’ve been furniture shopping all week, and things are already being delivered. I’ve kept the curtains from the previous owner, and I bought a few pieces of their furniture and their piano, too. They’re elderly and they’re downsizing. I’ll let you know when the housewarming is.”
“We’ll look forward to it,” Stone said. He looked up to see Dino returning and gave Stanley the nod to get the van brought out front. Stone paid the check, and they got up and started for the door.
Stanley came back through the front door, breathless. “The van has been shot up, and our driver is dead,” he said. “Go back to your table. I’ve already called it in, and reinforcements and a new vehicle are on the way.”
They went back to the table. Dino got out his cell phone and called the local precinct. He hung up. “NYPD is on the way,” he said.
After ten minutes of grim silence, Stanley returned. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got a car waiting at the back door.”
They followed him outside and got into a stretch Lincoln.
“How did they shoot the driver?” Stone asked.
“He was smoking and had the window down, and that’s definitely not procedure. The van took everything they threw at it and looks good. They’ll need to touch up the paint here and there.”
They pulled out of the alley and were bracketed by two black SUVs that followed them, first to Dino’s building, then to Stone’s house. There were half a dozen heavily armed men around them when they got out of the car and went inside.
“I am unaccustomed to being guarded by men with machine guns,” Helga said as they walked into the master suite.
“So am I,” Stone replied.
“I think it is time for me to return to Sweden, where things are quieter.”
“I couldn’t blame you,” Stone said, “but I would miss you.”
“Why don’t you come with me?” Helga asked as she got into bed. “You will like my island.”
“I have an island of my own, in Maine,” Stone said, “called Islesboro. I think it’s time I got out of town. When the auto show is over, I’m going up there. Why don’t you wait another week and come with me? I’ll invite Marcel, also.”
“I’ll sleep on it,” Helga said.
But they didn’t get much sleep.
• • •
There was a message on Stone’s desk from Mike Freeman, and he returned the call.
“I hear you had a bit of a rumble last night,” Mike said.
“You could say that.”
“You’ll be happy to hear that our van performed brilliantly. It’s at our factory in New Jersey. It needs a few holes in the bodywork filled and painted, but the Kevlar panels stopped everything. A pity about the driver.”
“He had the window down,” Stone said.
“That’s what I heard. You’ll have the vehicle back late this afternoon without a scratch on it.”
“Lance will be so pleased,” Stone said. “He’s besotted with your van.”
“I wish he could do a commercial for us,” Mike said. “We’ll do very well on sales to the government, even without that. I’ve had a lot of pictures taken of the van before we started repairing it.”
“You may get an offer from Marcel for Strategic Services,” Stone said. “Even though I’ve told him you won’t sell.”
“Good. That will give me some idea of what we’re worth.”
Stone hung up and called Dino. “I’m getting out of town for the weekend,” he said. “You and Viv want to come up to Maine?”
“Viv’s working,” Dino said. “She’s gotta travel somewhere with a client, but I’m in.”
“My house at two on Friday?”
“I’ll see if I can give myself the afternoon off.”
48
Stone had a day in the house with no company, except Joan. Marcel and Helga did the auto show and didn’t get home until late. Helene made dinner.
• • •
Everybody ready to leave for Maine tomorrow at two?” he asked his guests.
“I’m always ready to travel,” Marcel said.
“What sort of clothes will I need for Maine?” Helga asked.
“Very casual,” Stone replied. “You’ll need a sweater in the evenings, and maybe in the daytime, too, and a light jacket, just in case.”
“Will we be swimming?” Helga asked. “I didn’t bring my bikini.”
“Not unless you like your water temperature in the forties.”
“How much is that in centigrade?”
“I have no idea, but it’s cold enough to freeze body parts. You would not enjoy your swim, although we would enjoy seeing you in a bikini.”
“I’ll do some shopping tomorrow morning, just in case,” Helga said.
“Whatever you wish.”
• • •
At two the following afternoon the van awaited, and Stanley rang the bell and told them the luggage had been loaded. They made it into the van without being fired on, and Stone gave the driver his instructions.
“Are we not driving?” Helga asked.
“No, that would take about eight hours, including a ferry ride to the island. I have an airplane at Teterboro, where you landed when you arrived.”
“Ah,” she said.
Half an hour later they passed through the security gate and pulled up to Stone’s Citation Mustang.
“How cute!” Helga said, getting out of the van and regarding the little jet. “Is there room for all of us?”
“There is,” Stone said. Dino loaded the luggage while Stone did a preflight inspection, then settled Helga and Marcel in the cabin of the airplane.
“Where are the pilots?” Helga asked.
“You’re looking at him,” Stone replied.
“Just you?”
“Dino will help.”
He showed them the earphones for music, then closed the cabin door and began working his way through the checklist, while Dino watched carefully, as he always did, to see that Stone missed nothing.
Stone got a clearance, then taxied to Runway 1. There was a short wait while another airplane landed. Stone did his final checklist, then was cleared for takeoff. He taxied onto the runway, stopped, set the heading and pitot head and switched on the relevant light switches, then he pushed the throttles forward and watched the airspeed as they accelerated. He rotated, climbed to seven hundred feet, then switched on the autopilot. He said goodbye to Teterboro tower and switched to the departure frequency, then was given a climb by New York Departure, then cleared to his first waypoint. Twenty minutes later they were at flight level 310, where Stone leveled the airplane and switched
on music for the passengers.
Helga got up and came forward. “This is very interesting,” she said.
Stone asked Dino to switch places with her, and she sat down in the copilot’s seat.
“I hope Dino won’t be offended to give me his seat,” she said.
“Once Dino has willed us into the air without crashing, he’s happy to leave the cockpit,” Stone said. He began explaining the three large color displays that told them everything about the condition of the airplane and their route.
“This is where we’re headed,” Stone said, showing her Islesboro on the large map display.
“And you can land this airplane there?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, there’s a paved runway.” He didn’t explain that it was only 2,450 feet long.
“How long will it take us?”
“Less than an hour.”
“And it would take eight hours to drive?”
“Right.”
“An airplane is very convenient to own,” she said.
• • •
Half an hour later ATC gave him his descent, and he began pointing out things to Helga. “The bay in front of us is Penobscot Bay,” he said, “the largest in Maine.” He changed the range on the map display, and the island got larger. Twenty miles out he canceled his instrument flight plan, then made his final descent to Islesboro. He checked the windsock to see which end of the runway was favored and he lined up on it, dropping the landing gear, adding full flaps, and slowing dramatically. On such a short runway, a pilot did not want to land hot.
Suddenly they were on the ground, and Stone was using the speed brakes to dump lift and braking hard.
“That was wonderful,” Helga said. “Now what do we do?”
Stone turned the airplane around and pointed to a man leaning against a 1938 Ford station wagon. “That’s Seth, my caretaker. He’ll drive us to the house, and his wife, Mary, will give us our meals.”
Stone parked and set the brakes, then went through the engine shutdown checklist. Then he, Dino, and Seth transferred the luggage to the station wagon, and he introduced Seth to everyone.
They drove to the village of Dark Harbor, then to the house, which was situated on the little harbor, within sight of the small yacht club.
Mary greeted them and showed the guests to their rooms.
Stone grabbed a pair of binoculars and walked out onto the porch overlooking the harbor. He looked at every boat moored there, remembering that his friend Jim Hackett, the founder of Strategic Services, had been shot on this very porch on a calm day by a sniper eight hundred yards out on a boat. He saw nothing unusual, but still, he went back into the house to his study and got the keys to the secret room that the Agency had built and equipped for his cousin, Dick Stone. Dick had recently been appointed deputy director for operations when he was murdered. Lance Cabot succeeded him.
Dino came down the stairs and found him there. “I thought you’d be in here,” he said, looking at the half dozen weapons hanging on one wall. “What are you going to give me?”
“Can you still hit a man at a thousand yards with a good rifle?”
“I can.”
Stone took down a military sniper’s rifle with a large scope and silencer and handed it to him, along with a loaded magazine. “I’ve had a look at the harbor, and I didn’t see anything, but I think we need to keep our people off the porch.”
“You’re remembering what happened to Jim,” Dino said, sighting through the rifle and checking its condition.
“I certainly won’t forget that. He was sitting right in front of me when he was hit.”
Dino placed the rifle behind the living room curtain, while Stone found himself an assault rifle and did the same.
Everybody came down for drinks at five. Stone and Dino were one ahead of them.
49
Stone was awakened in the wee hours by a small noise. He disentangled himself from Helga without waking her, grabbed a robe and a pistol, and padded slowly down the stairs. When he reached the living room he could see in the moonlight that the door to the back porch stood open. That had been the noise.
Silently, he checked that there was a round in the chamber, then he made his way across the living room, checking around him for company, until he came to the open door. He looked around the porch and carefully stepped outside. The chilly night air crept up his bare legs.
“You couldn’t sleep?” a voice asked.
Stone jerked in its direction, the pistol out in front of him.
“Relax, pal.” Dino was sitting in a corner of the porch, hidden in a shadow made by the moon, the sniper’s rifle across his lap.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Stone said.
“I got up to pee and thought I saw something in the harbor.” Dino got up, walked over, and handed Stone the binoculars. “See the buoy way out there? Check the third boat to the left of it.”
Stone stuffed the pistol in the pocket of his robe, took the binoculars, and trained them on the buoy for focus, then swung slowly to his left, to a third boat. “Looks like something fast, around forty feet. There’s a rubber dinghy aft, resting on a boarding platform.”
“It arrived ten minutes ago without lights. I thought that was odd.”
“You were right,” Stone said, “it is odd, a boat running in the dark without lights. It’s pretty bright out from the moon, maybe he just forgot to turn them on.”
“Maybe,” Dino said, “or maybe not. He used a very bright flashlight to pick up the mooring. I think there are two aboard.”
“I don’t see anybody on deck now.”
“Who knows we’re in Maine?” Dino asked.
“Only Joan. I didn’t tell anyone else. Except Stanley, when he dropped us at Teterboro. He was disturbed that we were going somewhere without him and his boys.”
“What’s Stanley’s last name?” Dino asked.
“I heard one of the other guards call him Manoff.”
“That’s Russian, isn’t it?”
“You’re a suspicious man, Dino.”
“I’m professionally suspicious, like you used to be.”
“You think I’m less suspicious than I used to be?”
“Yeah, since you left the department, you’re Sunny Jim.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. Is Stanley Agency?”
“I think he’s one of a group of civilian security people that the Agency employs to guard their buildings and people. I doubt if he’s a Company officer.”
“Then who knows where his loyalties might lie?” Dino said. “And what effect an important sum of money might have on those loyalties?”
“You have a point,” Stone said, peering through the glasses. “I just caught a glimpse of a red light through one of the boat’s ports,” he said. “It came on for a second, then went out.”
“Some of those little lithium-powered flashlights have a red bulb. Red light doesn’t screw up a person’s night vision.”
“I can see ripples,” Stone said. “They’re moving around inside the boat.”
“So they didn’t just get in, all tired, and go right to bed.”
“I guess not.” Stone braced himself against a porch post to steady the binoculars. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What?”
“They’re in the cockpit, two of them.”
Dino raised the rifle and peered through the scope at the boat. “And one of them has the moon glinting off his bald head,” he said. “And they’re launching the dinghy.”
Stone ran lightly upstairs, got his cell phone, and came back. He pressed a speed-dial number.
“Are you calling Stanley?” Dino asked.
“Nope.”
“Hello,” a sleepy woman’s voice said.
“Holly, it’s Stone.”
&
nbsp; She was instantly awake. “What’s up?”
“We’re at the Maine house.”
“How did you lose Stanley?”
“We may not have lost him,” Stone said. “We said goodbye at Teterboro, and now there are two men on a fast boat in the harbor, one of whom is as bald as an egg.”
“I’ll call you back,” Holly said, then broke the connection.
“Did Holly send Stanley up here?” Dino asked.
“I don’t think so,” Stone said. He looked through the binoculars again. “They’re rowing in,” he said. “I think there’s an outboard on the dinghy, but they’re not using it.”
Dino braced his rifle against a porch post and looked through the scope again. “The bald guy is sitting in the stern, while his buddy does the rowing. And the bald guy seems to have a rifle slung across his body. I could take him out right now.”
“If you do that, it will turn out to be the commodore of the yacht club coming back from a midnight cruise.”
“Yeah, well.”
“Interesting, though—they don’t seem to be aiming for the yacht club dock. It’s more like they’re aiming for mine.”
“Why don’t we go down there and greet them?” Dino said.
50
Stone ran back into the living room and retrieved the assault rifle he’d left behind the curtains, then he joined Dino on the front porch.
“Are they still coming?” he asked Dino.
“Yep. Let’s go.”
They ran lightly across the backyard, using trees and shrubbery to keep from being seen. At the head of the ramp to the dock, there were two tall evergreen shrubs, and they took up positions behind them. Soon, Stone could hear the sound of the dinghy’s oars and some unintelligible whispering. A couple of minutes later there was the sound of rubber squeaking against the dock, and Stone could see the dock move as the two men alit from the dinghy. They padded down the dock and started up the ramp. “There’s the house,” one of them said.
As they stepped onto the grass and walked past the evergreens, Dino said, in his best cop voice, “Freeze, NYPD.”
Stone thought the NYPD was superfluous, so he racked the slide on his weapon for emphasis.
