Strategic Moves

by Stuart Woods

  “Why, hello, Stone,” Tiffany said, transmitting both surprise and interest. “Long time.”

  “Yes, it has been, hasn’t it?” Stone replied. “I have a tip for you.”

  “Stone, you know I don’t play the ponies.”

  “Not that kind of tip.”

  “What kind of tip?”

  “A tip about the possible occurrence of a crime.”

  “What crime?”

  “You remember the business with Jack Gunn’s investment firm losing a billion dollars temporarily?”

  “Yes, I was all over it. It was resolved.”

  “Well, it may be about to happen again, and if it does, it won’t be resolved.”

  “Stone, I’m busy. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

  “Jack Gunn’s son and daughter, David and Stephanie, may be about to decamp to the island of Attola in the Pacific with a great deal of the firm’s money.”

  “What evidence do you have to support this?”

  “My client is married to Stephanie. He has overheard fragments of telephone conversations in which she is discussing Attola and making travel arrangements.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stone, why are you wasting my time?”

  “I thought you might want to instruct the FBI to investigate this.”

  “Investigate what? No crime has been committed.”

  “Well, not yet. Don’t you investigate crimes that may be about to be committed?”

  “No, we don’t, and we don’t ask the FBI to do that, either, not without some sort of solid evidence on which to proceed. I’m surprised at you, Stone; you know better than this.”

  “Okay, Tiff,” Stone said, “I’ve done my civic duty. Now I’m going to attack the work on my desk and forget all about this.”

  “What a good idea!” she said, laughing. “Dinner?”

  “I’m seeing somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, no, we’re not going there. Bye-bye, Tiff.” Stone hung up. He felt that a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. Now he could attack the work on his desk.

  Except that there was no work on his desk.

  Joan buzzed him. “Lance Cabot on one.”

  Stone picked up. “Good morning, Lance.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Lance said. “Pablo has disappeared.”

  “Lance, there are eight men from Strategic Services guarding him; he can’t disappear.”

  “Nevertheless,” Lance said.

  “How did this happen?”

  “His wife wanted to go to the market in Washington, and Pablo went with her. They went into the market, followed by two of Mike Freeman’s men, and then straight out the back door, and they disappeared.”

  “You’d better check the airport at Newburgh,” Stone said. “It sounds like Pablo has decided to run.”

  “Holly is all over that and every other airport in the area,” Lance said. “Run from what?”

  “Well, Lance, your very good friend and colleague Moishe Aarons has been trying to find Pablo—God knows why—but Pablo found that disturbing. Somehow—and I’m not making any accusations—Mr. Aarons found out about your meetings with Pablo. How could that have happened?”

  Lance was silent.

  “Hello, hello? Can you think of any way that Aarons could have found out about those meetings?”

  “I’m thinking,” Lance said.

  “I’ll just wait while you think,” Stone said, then sat there silently.

  “All right,” Lance said finally, “he may have inferred that from something I said to him.”

  “Lance, we had a firm and very clear agreement that the existence of those meetings would be kept within a very tight circle of your people.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “Did you intend that very tight circle to include the Mossad?”

  “Of course not, Stone. It was just a slip of the tongue over lunch.”

  “It must have been a very big slip of the tongue, since Aarons knew that the meetings took place at my house and that I was in touch with Pablo.”

  “I have to go now,” Lance said. “There are people waiting to see me.”

  “Lance—” But Lance had hung up.

  Stone looked up to see a man he didn’t recognize standing in his doorway. He was tall, with a dark, heavy beard and black horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Good morning, Stone.”

  “Yes? Have we met?”

  The man came across the room and sat down in the chair opposite Stone. “My disguise is better than I thought.”

  “Pablo?” Stone said with astonishment.

  “Don’t make me take the beard off; it took me too long to get it right. You were talking with Lance?”

  “Yes, just now.”

  “I heard you mention his name.”

  “He called to tell me you had disappeared.”

  “He’s quite right, I have,” Pablo said.

  “Why?”

  “Moishe Aarons wants me either in a Mossad interrogation facility or dead, and I don’t think he cares very much which.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because early this morning I walked down to the lake—I take a walk every morning—and I saw a boat being driven by Moishe himself. I don’t think he saw me, since I was partly behind a tree.”

  “Oh, shit,” Stone said.

  “Exactly,” Pablo replied.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Stone tried to think of what to do. “Pablo, how did you get away from the Washington market?”

  “One of my security people met us out back with a rental car and drove us here. He’s gone, now, to return the car.”

  “Then Lance will soon find out about the rental car. What happened to the other one?”

  “My other security guard returned it to Newburgh.”

  “Where do you want to go, Pablo?”

  “To Switzerland.”

  Stone shook his head. “No, Aarons knows about that house; he told me so. I imagine he already has people there.”

  Pablo thought about that. “I have a friend who has a country house in the south of England. I have not been there for some years, so I have no noticeable connection to it.”

  “You’re sure that Aarons isn’t aware of it?”

  “I can’t see how he would know about it,” Pablo said. “As I said, I haven’t been there for a long time, and Aarons’s interest in me is very recent.”

  “Where is your airplane?”

  “At Gulfstream, in Georgia, having some avionics issues resolved.”

  “How soon could you get it to the Northeast?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “There’s an airport near Washington called Oxford. It has a five-thousand-foot runway.”

  “Wouldn’t Lance’s people be watching it?”

  Stone shook his hand. “They will check it today, but Lance doesn’t have enough people around there to watch every airport. Anyway, since you have opted out of the surveillance he arranged, you have relieved him of the necessity to protect you. I’ve seen a G-Four take off from there, but probably not with full fuel.”

  “I think we would need at least six thousand feet with full fuel.”

  “Then have your people fly up from Georgia and land at Oxford but not refuel. That way, they won’t even have to stop the engines. You can land at Gander, in Newfoundland, and top off there.”

  “That seems a good plan,” Pablo said.

  “Can you get in touch with your friend in England?”

  “I’ll call him now,” Pablo said. He produced a cell phone and made the call. A conversation in French ensued, then he hung up. “All arranged,” he said. “We can land at Blackbushe, in southern England, and he’ll have us met.”

  A woman came into Stone’s office, and Pablo introduced his wife, a petite, beautiful woman about twenty years Pablo’s junior.

  “I’ll
drive you to Oxford tomorrow,” Stone said. “You two can stay here tonight.”

  “I think we’ll be fine at our New York apartment,” Pablo said. “I’ve never told anybody about it, and my security people will be there.”

  Joan buzzed. “A Mr. Aaron Beck to see you,” she said.

  “Quick,” Stone said to the couple, “out the back. You know the way through the garden, Pablo.”

  Pablo and his wife hurried out of his office, and Stone asked Joan to send in Mr. Beck.

  Moishe Aarons walked in, followed by two large young men.

  “Mr. Aarons,” Stone said sarcastically, “what a nice surprise.”

  “Where is Pablo?” Aarons asked.

  “Are you going to start that again?” Stone asked, opening his center desk drawer and extracting a pad and pen. He left the drawer open.

  “Mr. Barrington,” Aarons said, “you have exhausted my patience.”

  “And you, mine,” Stone replied.

  “Search the house,” Aarons said, motioning the two men forward.

  Stone produced a .45 semiautomatic from his desk drawer. “Hold it right there,” he said.

  “You’re not going to fire at us,” Aarons said, but he didn’t move.

  “I can shoot all three of you dead before you can move, and nobody will blame me. You are intruders and I am licensed for the weapon.”

  “I’m licensed, too,” Joan said from the door, and she racked the slide on her own .45.

  The three men turned and looked at her. She had assumed a firing stance.

  Aarons turned back toward Stone. “I want Pablo,” he said.

  “Well, you can’t have him,” Stone replied. “At least, not from me. Try Lance Cabot again; he seems to be a productive source for you.”

  “I don’t have time,” Aarons replied.

  “And I don’t have any more time for you,” Stone said. “Now, hear this: from this moment I am going to consider you and your people a threat to my life and act accordingly, and I am a very good shot.” That was a lie, but he doubted if Aarons had perused his range record at the NYPD. Dino was always needling him about his mediocre shooting performance.

  “Place your hands on your head, turn and walk out of the building,” Stone said. “If you call again I’ll hang up on you, and if you come back I’ll fire on you. Is that clear?”

  The three men did as Stone had ordered, and Joan locked the door behind them.

  “Very good,” Stone said from his office door. “I particularly liked your firing stance.”

  “That’s what they taught me at the range,” Joan said, “but I doubt if I could have hit any of them with this thing; it weighs a ton.”

  “Only thirty-nine ounces,” Stone said.

  “That’s two and a half pounds,” Joan pointed out, “and I’m a small girl.”

  The phone rang, and Joan answered. “Mike Freeman for you,” she said.

  Stone walked back to his desk and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “It’s Mike.”

  “Hello, Mike. It must be a beautiful day on Lake Waramaug.”

  “I’m in New York,” Mike said.

  “A pity; it’s gorgeous up there.”

  “You know, don’t you?”

  Stone now had to decide between his two clients. “Lance called,” he said, avoiding the decision.

  “I’m embarrassed,” Mike said. “I’ve already fired the two men who let it happen.”

  “I wouldn’t be too hard on them,” Stone said. “After all, we have to assume he’s still safe, just not in custody, so to speak.”

  “We checked all the airports in the area,” Mike said. “No sign of Pablo.”

  “I wouldn’t try too hard to find him,” Stone replied. “He doesn’t seem to want protecting anymore.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Mike said. “We’ll stand down.”

  Stone hung up. Now, he thought, if I could just be sure that the Mossad and Al Qaeda have stood down.

  FIFTY-NINE

  Stone was at Elaine’s with Dino when Lance Cabot walked in and, without a word, sat down, waving at a waiter. He did not speak until an icy martini sat before him.

  Stone and Dino exchanged a glance.

  “Good evening, Lance,” Dino said.

  “Is it?”

  “It was until a moment ago,” Stone said. “What do you want?”

  “Peace on Earth,” Lance replied, speaking into his martini, “or at least in this little corner of the earth.”

  Stone had never seen Lance so dejected, and he fought the tendency to feel sorry for him. “All right, what has disturbed the peace of your corner of the earth this evening?”

  “I did it to myself,” Lance said.

  Dino spoke up. “This man is an impostor. The real Lance Cabot would never say a thing like that.”

  “I agree,” Stone said. “Are you feeling bad about sending that nice young fellow Todd Bacon off to the Aleutians?”

  Lance brightened visibly. “No, I didn’t send him to the Aleutians after all,” he said. “Instead, I sent him back to the Farm for torture-resistance training. That way, he will actually be tortured.”

  “Oh,” Stone said, reluctantly admiring the way Lance’s mind worked.

  “I’m feeling better,” Lance said, downing the remains of his martini and waving for another.

  “I’m glad we could be of help,” Stone said.

  “Where is Pablo now?” Lance asked.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Frankly, I thought I had overreacted to the idea of a threat against him when I assigned those Strategic Services people to protect him, but it turns out there really is a threat.”

  “Uh-oh,” Dino said.

  “Funny, that’s what I said when I heard,” Lance said.

  “Heard what?” Stone asked.

  “The boys over at NSA have picked up more satphone chatter about him.”

  “And what was the source of the chatter?”

  “Northwestern Pakistan,” Lance replied. “Less than forty miles from the former cave facility at Tora Bora.”

  “Speaking of Tora Bora, any more news?”

  “Estimates are that we killed about two hundred of the bastards in the bombing raid,” Lance said, “and not a few mules.”

  “Does any of them have a name?”

  “That will take time; we’ll have to count noses—or rather, missing noses.”

  “Anything on the condition of bin Laden’s nose?”

  “Nothing, as yet.”

  “Let’s get back to the chat about Pablo,” Stone said.

  “Oh, yes. It seems they have made the connection between Pablo and the bombing raid, and they’re even more furious than usual.”

  “And how did they make that connection?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicions.”

  “And what do you suspect?”

  “I suspect that Moishe Aarons—or one of his people—frustrated with their lack of success in laying hands on Pablo, may have leaked the connection to someone who knows someone in that part of the world. News travels fast, even over there.”

  “I suppose it does,” Stone said, trying to figure out how to deal with this.

  “Mind you,” Lance said, “that is very Machiavellian, even for Moishe.”

  Stone was beginning to regret that he had spoken so harshly to Aarons. “Lance,” he said, “do you think that this translates into an immediate threat against Pablo?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lance said, as if he had been misunderstood. “If what happened at my brother’s Lake Waramaug house is any indication.”

  Stone waved for another bourbon. “All right, what happened at Lake Waramaug?”

  “The house was set afire by unknown arsonists about an hour ago. It’s still burning.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, but the house is going to be a total loss, and I’m going to have to find the money to pay for its rebuilding and the replacement of cer
tain valuable antiques. God, it may take an act of Congress.”

  Stone was appalled. “No insurance?”

  “Well, yes, but filing a claim would just provoke a lot of unwanted questions from a claim adjuster, and those might find their way to a congressional committee.”

  “I see,” Stone said.

  “Stone,” Lance said, “if you know where Pablo is, you’d better get him out of the country, and pronto.”

  “Pronto,” Stone repeated tonelessly.

  “Yes,” Lance said.

  “Excuse me for a minute,” Stone said. He went into the empty dining room next door, the one Elaine used for big parties, and called Pablo.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Stone.”

  “Good evening.”

  “What time can your airplane be at the place we discussed?”

  “I’m told by the pilot ten a.m. tomorrow morning.”

  “Then I need to pick you up at eight a.m. sharp. Where can we meet?”

  Pablo gave him an Upper East Side address. “We will be standing just inside the door of the building promptly at eight. What will you be driving?”

  “A black Mercedes E55 sedan,” Stone said.

  “You sound very concerned,” Pablo said.

  “I am, but I can’t tell you any more now. I’ll explain everything on the way to the place.”

  “All right,” Pablo said. “Should I be armed?”

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Stone said. They said goodbye and hung up.

  Stone returned to the table, where Lance and Dino were ordering dinner. “Spinach salad, chopped; rib eye, medium rare,” Stone said to the waiter.

  “Did you manage to make contact?”

  “Yes,” Stone replied.

  “Did you impress upon him the danger he’s in?”

  “No,” Stone said, “it would have just made him nervous, and I don’t want him nervous.”

  “Anything I can do to help?” Lance asked.

  “Please, Lance,” Stone said, “don’t help any more.”

  SIXTY

  At a quarter to eight the following morning, Stone opened his garage door, walked out to the sidewalk and looked around. His street was uncharacteristically empty, and he was grateful for that. He backed out of the garage, closing the door with the remote, drove up to Park Avenue and took a right.