Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

15





Stone got back to the Plaza Athénée and checked his messages: Holly had called. He went upstairs to his suite, and as he opened the door he found the place dark. That surprised him, because the maids always threw open the curtains to his terrace. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he started. A man was sitting in one of the comfortable chairs across the room. Stone felt for a light switch and turned it on. Lance Cabot was sitting in the chair, his chin on his chest, apparently dead.

Stone went to the windows and pulled the curtains open.

The corpse moved a little, then opened its eyes. “Hello, Stone,” it said.

“Lance, what the hell are you doing here? Aren’t you in the middle of Senate hearings on your appointment as director?”

“The hearings are over,” Lance replied, stretching. “We expect a favorable result in a couple of days.”

“Why are you in Paris, then? Shouldn’t you be getting sworn in or something?”

“Yes, I should, but until I am sworn in I’m still deputy director for operations, and I have to deal with the unbelievable mess you’ve made in Paris.” He stood up and began pacing.

“What the f*ck are you talking about?”

“You managed to get yourself drugged on an airplane, and you’ve thrown my Paris station into a frenzy.”

“Well, your first statement is apparently true, but how have I thrown your station into a frenzy?”

“Let’s see,” Lance said, holding up a finger. “First, you turn up semiconscious at the embassy and cause my medical officer to have to save your life, instead of doing what he’s supposed to be doing. Then you’ve got my station head worrying about your activities in Paris instead of confounding his country’s enemies. You’re taking up most of the time of one of my best officers, who has apparently adopted you as a role model and has stuck me with a forty-thousand-dollar bill at Charvet. You’ve interfered with his approach to Marcel duBois, whom I had hoped he could make into an asset for us. You’re f*cking another very effective operative of ours, who should be paying attention to others, and wasting the time of yet another, who is dawdling at lunch and in galleries with you instead of doing her work. You’ve also brought her to the attention of a Russian named Majorov, who was previously unaware of her existence, which is the way I like it, and somebody has already taken a shot at her.”

“A shot? At Amanda? I left her only twenty minutes ago.”

“And she was shot at ten minutes ago, no doubt by Majorov or one of his operatives.”

“And all of this is my fault?”

“Certainly it is. If you weren’t in Paris, none of this would have happened. How the f*ck do you happen to know Marcel duBois?”

“I’m not entirely certain of that,” Stone said.

“Has the drug wiped out all memory of the man?”

“Well, yes, now that you mention it.”

“You don’t even remember meeting him in New York?”

“I was drugged,” Stone said defensively. “You said so yourself.”

“You weren’t supposed to be. The woman who dropped the stuff in your drink was supposed to put it in the drink of a man in the row behind you, but she was drunk and screwed up, because Amanda was talking to you and not the target. You were simply an unintended consequence of our plan.”

“Is the woman who drugged me one of your operatives, too?”

“Not anymore, she isn’t. She’s now doing clerical work in a windowless basement office at Langley, waiting for her retirement to kick in. Think carefully: What were you and Marcel duBois doing in New York?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to your managing partner, Bill Eggers, about this? Maybe he knows.”

“Eggers is in darkest Maine—moosing or something—and can’t be reached.”

“Swell. Now you are going to have to be my way to Marcel duBois.”

“Me? You want me to recruit the richest man in Europe to be your spy?”

“Not a spy, just an asset. Can you imagine how much information duBois could pass to us, given his business contacts on the continent? He could be invaluable.”

“Why would he consider an approach from me?”

“He sold you that f*cking automobile, didn’t he? And at a steeply discounted price, when half the billionaires in the world would pay a high premium to get their hands on one.”

“Well, it’s a very nice car, and you can’t blame me for accepting his offer.”

“I’m not blaming you, I’m happy for you. I hope you’ll let me drive it sometime. My point is, if he likes you enough to practically give you his greatest prize, then maybe he would respond favorably to an approach from you on our behalf.”

“And you came all the way from the States to ask me to do this?”

“I did. That’s how important it could be to us. A word from you in his shell-like ear might open a world of high-level business dealings to us. Can’t you see how important that could be to us in achieving our ends for our country? Have you no feeling for your homeland? No patriotism?”

“That’s pathetic, Lance! Pandering that way to get me to do your bidding. Patriotism, indeed!”

“I’m perfectly serious. You have a golden opportunity to make a difference in Europe for your country, and you’re feigning memory loss to get out of it!”

“Feigning? I remember nothing!” Stone shouted. “But I would if you hadn’t had me drugged with that stuff!”

“I told you, it was an accident! An unintended consequence!”

“That doesn’t matter, the effect is the same! I could have died! You said so yourself!”

“Now, now,” Lance said placatingly, “let’s get control of our emotions and discuss this like gentlemen.”

“Gentlemen? You’re no gentleman! You have people drugged on airplanes!”

Lance sank into his chair again, massaging his temples. “Look, this effort can still be saved. We’ve lucked into an entrée to duBois, the sort of thing that could happen once in a lifetime. What do I have to do to get your help? Do you want me to tell Helga to keep f*cking you?”

“Well, that’s not the worst offer I’ve ever had,” Stone said, “but quite frankly, I don’t think I need any help from you in that regard.”

“Perhaps not, but I can see that it never happens again. I can send her back to Stockholm.”

“A threat! Now we have threats!”

“Get duBois on our team, and I’ll give you a medal.”

“A medal? One of your ‘jockstrap’ medals that nobody can wear in his lifetime?”

“Well, there is that.”

“I don’t want your f*cking medal, I just want to get my memory back.”

“Our doctor tells me that shock treatments might help.”

“Shock treatments? That’s like something out of a bad movie! I haven’t heard about shock treatments since The Snake Pit.”

“Well, there was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with Jack Nicholson.”

“Yeah, and look how that turned out!”

“It was just a thought. I was trying to help.”

“Help? Help me get strapped to a table with a rubber thing between my teeth and electrodes on my temples?”

“All right, forget the electroshock treatments. Tell you what I’ll do: I’ll send somebody up to the North Woods of Maine to find Eggers and give him a satphone. Then you can ask him what you and duBois were doing in New York. He’ll know, won’t he?”

“Now, that is the first sensible thing you’ve had to say since you broke into my suite.”

“I’m a spy, I don’t need to break in,” Lance pointed out. “I know how to pick locks.”

“Is that how you got in here?”

“I also know how to give a hundred-euro note to a bellman.”

“All right, get a satphone to Eggers. I’ll talk to him, and then we’ll talk again.”

“I’d buy you dinner, but I hear Helga has dibs.”

“Yes, and don’t you say another word to Helga,” Stone said.

Lance whipped out his cell phone and started issuing orders.