Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

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.