Stuart Woods 6 Stone Barrington Novels

by Stuart Woods

  “Maybe Lance’s other suggestion would be more effective, without getting you put in jail.”

  “The New York Times?”

  “Right.”

  “You said that could make trouble for me and my department.”

  “And you said you were tired of it anyway. Want to go out in a burst of glory?”

  “Or down in flames?”

  “Same thing.”

  Dino spoke up again. “Could I just remind you both that the last time you annoyed Trini there were very serious attempts on both your lives? Talk about going down in flames!”

  “There is that,” Stone said. “They might get luckier next time.”

  “The Times idea is looking pretty good right now.”

  “Think about it,” Stone said. “Suppose you convince the Times, and they run a big story. Then you’ll have a media horde camped on your doorstep—rather, my doorstep—clamoring for interviews. America’s Most Wanted will be after you, as will every supermarket tabloid in the country. You think that will help?”

  “I don’t know,” Holly said. “I’m so tired. I feel like I’m still in Santa Fe, with altitude sickness.”

  “So am I,” Stone admitted. “Why don’t we think about this tomorrow?”

  “Just like Scarlett O’Hara,” Holly said, downing her drink. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Stone and Holly were sound asleep in his bed when there was a loud noise in the bedroom. Stone sat up. “What was that?”

  A very bright light blinded him. “That was the sound of your body hitting the floor,” a man’s voice said.

  “What’s going on?” Holly asked, sitting up and clutching the sheet to her breast.

  “Now your little quest is at an end,” the voice said.

  “It’s Trini,” Holly said to Stone.

  “Swell.”

  There was the sound of a semiautomatic pistol having its action worked.

  “Could I just point out something?” Stone asked.

  “Be quick. I want to kill you, then go to bed.”

  “You haven’t committed a crime since you’ve been in the Witness Protection Program—at least not one they can hang on you.”

  “They can’t hang this one on me, either,” the voice said.

  “Oh, yes they can. The New York City Police Department knows about you, knows where you live. You kill us, and your federal protection will evaporate like the morning mist. You’ll be a fugitive from the Feds as well as the Florida authorities. Your picture will be all over television, all over those most-wanted shows, and there’ll be a big reward out for you. You’ll never have another day’s peace for the rest of your life.”

  There was a long silence, then the voice spoke again. “This is your last warning. Next time, you both die, and you know I can do it.” Suddenly, the light went out, and footsteps could be heard on the stairs.

  “Now’s my chance,” Holly said. “If I can kill him before he leaves the house, it’ll be a good shooting.”

  Stone grabbed her wrist. “Hang on. You don’t know if he has somebody with him. They could be guarding the stairs until he’s out of the house, and you’re not going to have any night vision for a few minutes after having that light in your eyes. Let it go.”

  Holly sat down on the bed. “You’re a pretty good lawyer,” she said. “You talked him out of killing us.”

  “Next time, he’ll have an alibi, and he’ll kill us.”

  “Next time, set the burglar alarm, will you?”

  “Yeah, I did forget that.”

  “You’re forgiven, since I’m still alive, but if you forget again, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Stone got up and went to his safe.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m getting the Walther out of the safe. He could change his mind.”

  “You think you could set the alarm now?”

  And he did.

  43

  STONE WAS SCRAMBLING eggs when Holly came downstairs, wrapping a robe around her naked body.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “No, it isn’t. That son of a bitch would have killed us last night if you hadn’t talked him out of it.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do the alarm every night.”

  Holly picked up a phone and dialed a number.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “A certain cell phone.” She waited, tapping her foot. “Grant? Listen to me: Your star witness got out of his cage last night, came into my bedroom with a gun, and threatened to kill me. I’m filing a formal complaint with the NYPD about this. . . . What?” She put her hand over the phone and turned to Stone. “Turn on the TV.”

  Stone switched it on. “What are we looking for?”

  “Try CNN.”

  He switched to CNN. A reporter was standing in front of Trini’s apartment building on East Eighty-eighth Street. “So one FBI agent is dead and another wounded, apparently by a man being held as a material witness. We don’t have a photograph yet, but his name is Trini Rodriguez, also known as Robert Marshall. He is in his mid-thirties, six feet two inches tall, one hundred and eighty pounds, and of Latin and Italian extraction. We expect to have a photograph of him later this morning.”

  “So,” Holly said into the phone, “you got one of your people killed and another hurt? . . . Of course you did it! You’re responsible!” She held the phone away from her. “He hung up.”

  “So, Trini is on the streets?” Stone asked.

  “Since early this morning,” Holly said. “Grant couldn’t tell me anything more than CNN did.”

  “You and I go armed everywhere,” Stone said.

  “Too right. Where do we start looking for him?”

  “Let me call Dino.” Stone dialed Dino’s cell phone number. “I hear our boy is off his leash,” he said.

  “And in a big way,” Dino replied. “We’re taking a backseat to the Feds on this, since killing an FBI agent is a federal crime.”

  “So you’re not actively looking for him?”

  “Oh, sure. We’ve sent a photograph to all precincts and issued an APB.”

  “You have any clues to his whereabouts?”

  “If I did, he’d be in a cell right now.”

  “Will you keep me posted?”

  “Sure, that’s my only job, isn’t it?”

  “Thanks, Dino.” He hung up. “The NYPD is on it, but the Feds are taking the lead. He’ll turn up.”

  “You don’t understand,” Holly said. “I want to turn him up. I want to find him before they do.”

  “And how do you expect to do that?”

  “Call your Mafia friend again. Ask him what he knows.”

  “I’ll call him, but he won’t know anything. He can put the word out, and if anybody is sheltering him, he might call me.”

  “Then we’ll know something the NYPD and the Feds won’t.”

  “If we’re lucky.”

  “It’s about time we got lucky.”

  Stone couldn’t disagree with that.

  “Let’s go to Little Italy,” she said.

  “After breakfast and a shower.”

  Hungry and unshowered, Stone drove slowly up and down the narrow streets of Little Italy. He stopped the car in front of a deli. “Go in and get us a roll and coffee.”

  “Keep driving,” she replied.

  “This car isn’t moving until I’ve had breakfast.”

  “Oh, all right,” she said, getting out and slamming the door. She came back shortly with a paper bag and two cups of coffee.

  Stone dug in. “This is when it happens,” he said, looking around the street.

  “When what happens?”

  “When we see him. When I’m right in the middle of eating. Remember last time? I never got lunch.”

  “Oh, stop your bitching,” she said, sipping her coffee. “We’ve got a real chance of catching this guy now.”

  “I don’t think you want to catch him.”

  “What?”

  “You just w
ant to go on hunting him. You enjoy it.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes, you do. You’ve already admitted that you’re bored stiff in your job. You just want to get out of that little town in Florida and see some of the world, and Trini Rodriguez is your ticket.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said, but less heatedly.

  “If we catch the guy it’s going to be a real downer for you, assuming you survive the experience, which, if the events of last night are any indication, you may not.”

  “Oh, I’m going to survive. Don’t you worry about that. Trini’s chances are not so hot, though.”

  “Let me tell you what to hope for.”

  “What?”

  “Hope the NYPD catches the bastard, because they just might honor your warrant as a way of pissing off the FBI, which they love to do. Also, hope Trini doesn’t kill a cop in the process, because if that happens, they’ll never release him to you or the Feds.”

  “I hope I see him on the street, so I can get just one clear shot at him.”

  “Holly, this is not the O.K. Corral, and you are not Wyatt Earp. This is New York City; millions of people live here, and most of them are on the street every day.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?”

  Stone sighed. “I hope to God you do.”

  “Did you call your friend Eduardo?”

  “And when would I have had a chance to do that?” Stone put his empty cup into the paper bag and handed it to Holly. “All right, I’ll do it now.” He got out his cell phone and dialed the number. Pete answered and connected him.

  “Good morning, Stone,” Eduardo said. “Have you had any luck finding this Trini fellow?”

  “No, Eduardo, and this morning he killed an FBI agent who was guarding him and wounded another.”

  “This man must be stopped,” Eduardo said.

  “He’s on the run now, and I’d be grateful for any help you could give me in locating him.”

  “I’ll make some calls,” Eduardo said. “Are you at home?”

  “No, I’m on my cell phone.” Stone gave him the number, and Eduardo hung up.

  “Happy?” he said to Holly.

  “Deliriously,” she said grumpily.

  A man in a raincoat walked up to Stone’s side of the car. “Excuse me,” he said.

  Stone turned and looked up at him, only to find himself looking into both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun.

  “I’ve got one over here, too,” Holly said.

  “What can I do for you?” Stone asked, placing his hands on the steering wheel.

  “You can do what you’re told,” the man said.

  “Shoot,” Stone replied. “No, scrub that—I mean, your wish is my pleasure.”

  “You got a good attitude,” the man said. “Get out of the car.”

  44

  THEY WERE MARCHED across the street and down the block by the two men wearing raincoats and carrying shotguns. As they moved down the street a pair of steel doors opened ahead of them and a freight elevator appeared.

  “Hop on,” one of the men said.

  They got on, the platform descended into the darkness below the sidewalk, and the doors closed above their heads. Before their eyes could become accustomed to the gloom, hands searched them and removed their weapons. Then they were shoved along a basement filled with crates of canned food and bottles of olive oil to a storeroom at the rear, where they were shoved rudely inside. The door was closed and bolted.

  “All right, what now?” Holly said.

  Stone couldn’t see her, or his own hand in front of his face. “You think I have a solution for this problem?”

  “You’re resourceful. Think of something.”

  “It’s your turn.”

  She sighed loudly. “You want to just wait around here until Trini arrives and shoots us?”

  “You think that’s the plan?”

  “Well, I don’t think those two guys were with the FBI or the NYPD, do you?”

  “Come to think of it, I don’t believe either of those groups ordinarily arms its people with sawed-off shotguns.”

  “Well, that’s an astute observation.”

  “It’s the best I can do in the dark.”

  A light came on. It was a tiny flashlight, and Holly was holding it.

  “You always carry a flashlight?”

  “It’s on my key ring,” she said, aiming it around the room. All four walls were brick, and the floor concrete, with a large drain in the middle. Along the ceiling was a row of meat hooks.

  “Uh-oh,” Stone said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t tell me ‘nothing’; what?”

  “Turn off the light and save the batteries for when we need them.”

  “Need them for what?”

  “For seeing.”

  “We need them now for seeing.”

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “There’s those hooks. I don’t like the look of them.”

  “Me, either. That’s why I said, ‘uh-oh.’ ”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” she said.

  “I’d appreciate your thoughts on just how to do that.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” she said.

  Stone put his hand against the door and pushed. “Solid oak,” he said. “Firmly bolted.”

  “Maybe if we both put our shoulders against it?”

  “We’d bruise our shoulders quite badly.”

  “What would you suggest?”

  “We can wait for somebody to unbolt it, then put our shoulders against it. We might surprise them.”

  “Fuggedaboutit!” said a voice from outside the door.

  Holly reached out and grabbed for Stone, then put her lips close to his ear. “I think they can hear us.”

  “I think so, too,” Stone whispered back.

  “Maybe we’d better shut up.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Don’t stop thinking, though.”

  “I’m still thinking.”

  A long silence.

  “You come up with anything yet?” she whispered.

  “Not yet.”

  Another loud sigh. She switched on the light and turned it on some crates against the wall. “We can sit down,” she said.

  They sat down.

  “There’s even room to lie down,” she said.

  “Are you sleepy?”

  “No, I’m horny.”

  “At a time like this?” he whispered.

  “Well, it looks like we’re not going to live very long. It might be our last chance.”

  “I don’t think I could rise to the occasion,” he whispered.

  She put her hand on his thigh and felt for his zipper. “I’ll bet you can.”

  “Holly.”

  “What?”

  “Not now.”

  “If not now, when?” She got the zipper undone and began to feel around.

  “You have a point,” he said, reaching for her.

  45

  SOMETHING WOKE STONE, and when he opened his eyes he was dazzled by the light from a single bulb in the ceiling. He shook Holly.

  “Again?” she asked.

  “Not right now. Look.” He pointed toward the door. A bottle of wine with the cork half removed and a paper bag were on the floor near the door.

  Stone got up and retrieved them. Inside the bag were two paper cups, a large slice of Parmesan cheese, and a loaf of Italian bread. They fell upon the food.

  “What time is it?” Holly asked, her mouth half full.

  Stone consulted his watch. “A little after eight. Man, this is good cheese.”

  “Bread, too,” she said. “Night or morning?”

  “I don’t know. Night, would be my guess. More wine?”

  “Please.”

  He poured it for her, then gulped. “I just had a t
hought,” he said.

  “Share it.”

  “Last meal?”

  “Stop sharing.”

  They heard a noise coming from outside the door, steel clanking against concrete. It went on for some time, then it changed to the sound of a pick and shovel in dirt.

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Stone said.

  “Maybe it’s construction work.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think so.”

  “I told you to stop sharing.”

  Stone walked over to the door and listened. The sounds were clearer and even less encouraging. He could hear two men grunting at their labor. “Why would they feed us, then kill us?” he asked.

  The answer came back from the other side of the door. “Because I’m a romantic.”

  “You’ve been listening to us, ah . . .”

  “Screwing? Yeah. How could I help it?”

  “Well, thanks for the food and wine.”

  “Don’t mention it. Nice Chianti, huh?”

  “Very nice,” Stone replied. He went and sat by Holly.

  “I think that answers your question,” he whispered.

  “More wine,” she said.

  Stone poured for both of them.

  “You’re taking this a lot better than I am,” Holly said.

  “No, I’m not. I’m just . . .” Stone stopped and listened. “The digging stopped,” he said.

  “Oh, shit. More wine.”

  Before he could pour, the door opened and a man stepped inside holding a shotgun.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said.

  Stone recognized the voice from the other side of the door. “I wonder if we could talk about this for just a minute?”

  “Nope. You’re all out of time.” He waved the shotgun toward the door.

  Stone and Holly got up from their crates and walked out of the room. The lights were on in the cellar. They were led between rows of stacked goods to the other end, where two sweating men with shovels stood by a large hole. Two bags of lime sat next to the hole.

  The smells in the cellar were of cheese, fresh fruit, and fresh earth. These were the last scents they would ever smell. “I wonder if I could get you to make just one phone call before you do this?” Stone asked.