Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

10





By the time they were on dessert, most of the previous tension between them had passed, and they were chatting amiably.

“Tell me,” Stone said, “why did you buy the book?”

“I’d read something about it on Page Six of the Post.” She held up a hand as if to ward him off. “Yes, I confess, I’m a regular reader. I didn’t know I would be sitting across the aisle from one of the subjects, not until I opened the book and saw the photographs.”

“There are photographs?”

“Quite a few, including some taken at the Virginia house where . . .”

“Where Arrington was murdered.”

“Yes. It’s a very beautiful house. Do you still own it?”

“No. After a feature about the house appeared in Architectural Digest, it began attracting interest. I accepted an offer on behalf of my son’s trust a few months later.”

“Your son’s story was the one part of the book that wasn’t very clear.”

“It’s best that way. I don’t want him bothered.”

“Where is he now?”

“At the Yale School of Drama. He’ll be graduating this winter.”

“Winter?”

“He’s on an accelerated course, ahead of most of his class. He and two friends are on a parallel track, and they’ll graduate with him.”

“Is one of them his girlfriend, the pianist?”

“Yes, she’s studying composition. The other is his friend Ben Bacchetti, who’s majoring in theater production and business.”

“Do they all have plans together?”

“They do. They want to make films together—Peter writing and directing, Ben producing, and Hattie scoring.”

“Sounds like quite a team. Do you think they’ll get anything produced?”

Stone smiled. “You’ll recall from the book that Peter’s stepfather was the actor Vance Calder. As a result, Peter’s trust is the largest stockholder in Centurion Studios.”

She laughed. “Well, I guess they’ll get produced.”

“Yes, and they’ll make their artistic home at Centurion.”

Stone paid the bill and they left the restaurant. “Is it too cold out, or would you like to walk a bit?” he asked.

“Let’s do that.”

They wandered down the Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, took a right, and strolled aimlessly into a neighborhood of small shops and houses.

“Tell me,” Stone said, “is there anything mysterious about your life?”

“Mysterious?”

“Enigmatic, surreptitious, cloaked.”

“That’s an odd question,” she said. “Why did you ask it?”

“Why didn’t you answer it?”

“I asked you first.”

“All right: a man in a car has been following us with his headlights off since we left Lasserre. Don’t look back, check the reflection in the shop window coming up.”

She did so. “And you think he’s following me?”

“Tell me what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Do you have any reason to fear for your safety?”

“Not until just a moment ago. I see the car now.”

“Anyone you know?”

“I can’t see the driver—glare on the windscreen.”

“Do you think we should run for it?”

“I’ve a better idea: my hotel, the San Régis, is a few yards ahead. You can drop me there and take your chances with the assassin, if that’s what he is.”

“You would deny me shelter from an assassin?”

“I would deny you my bed, at least for the moment. I have a prejudice against first-date performances. You can wait in the lobby until he moves on.”

They reached the hotel. “Good night,” he said. “I hope to live to see you again.”

She laughed. “Somehow, I think you’ll manage.” She pecked him on the cheek and went inside.

Stone left the hotel and walked back in the direction he had come. The car sat idling, its lights off. Stone grasped the front passenger door handle, opened the door, and got in. “You’re a very clumsy surveillant,” he said to Rick LaRose. “Your trainers at the Farm would be ashamed of you.”

“Promise not to tell them,” Rick replied, putting the car in gear and driving away.

“Why are you following me?”

“What makes you think I’m following you?” Rick asked.

“Is there something about Ms. Hurley that I don’t know?”

“A great deal,” Rick replied. “Almost everything, in fact.”

“Tell me.”

“Tell me what she told you.”

“Small-town girl, Harvard, the Met, Sotheby’s, art world, curator.”

“That’s all true, as far as it goes.”

“What did she leave out?”

“The part about her recruitment in college, her extensive training, her clandestine service in the art worlds of London and Paris.”

“Recruitment by whom?”

“Us.”

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh. If she didn’t mention that, then she certainly didn’t mention the suspicions that arose about her—that she was f*cking a member of the opposition and might have been turned.”

“Was she booted out of the Agency?”

“You might say she resigned under a cloud after failing two polygraphs. Charges were never brought, either administrative or criminal. She is, however, on the watch list of every airport security team and major intelligence service in the world, and she will never again go anywhere or do anything that a lot of people won’t know about.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“Only to your reputation.”

“Is she in danger?”

“Only from you.”

“Why from me?”

“Because we’re not the only ones keeping track of you. Twice I’ve spotted a tail. And you will have made them interested in her.”

“By whom am I being tailed? Apart from you, I mean.”

“We were never able to make an ID. But I expect we’ll have other opportunities.”

“Am I a threat to someone?”

“That remains to be seen.” The car came to a halt outside the Plaza Athénée. “Good night, sleep tight,” Rick said.

Stone got out of the car. “Should I look over my shoulder?” he asked through the open window.

“Never look over your shoulder. Look at the reflections in the shop windows. Elementary tradecraft.”

He drove away.