Stone had a history with Lance Cabot, who had been a CIA operative in London when they first met. He had risen at the Agency over the years and was now director of Central Intelligence. And, Stone knew, Lance didn’t give a shit if he was disturbing him.
“You may as well come the rest of the way in, Lance,” he said, and as he did, he heard the outside door open and close.
Lance walked to a chair, and Joan stuck her head inside. “Sorry, boss, I was returning Sugar to her rightful owner, and Mr. Cabot got past me. Shall I shoot him?”
“Perhaps later,” Stone replied, and Lance managed a chuckle.
Stone glanced at his watch. “Join me in a drink?”
“If you have some very, very good single malt, I’d be delighted,” Lance said.
Stone went to his office bar and pressed the button that exposed the bottles behind the paneling. “I have a Talisker and a Laphroaig,” he said.
“Oh, the Laphroaig,” Lance replied. “Like it says on the bottle, with just a little cool water.”
Stone poured the whiskey, added a squirt of water, poured himself a Knob Creek on the rocks, and handed Lance his drink. He sat down. “Lance, what brings you to see me that we couldn’t have talked about on the phone?” He had the odd feeling that the man had choppered in from Langley just to speak to him face-to-face.
“Oh, I was just in town and thought I’d drop by.” He took a sip of his scotch and smiled a little. “Always goes down well.”
“Doesn’t it?” Stone didn’t speak further; he just waited for Lance to get around to it.
Finally, the silence got the best of him. “There is just this one thing,” Lance said. He waited another moment for Stone to respond, decided he wasn’t going to, and continued. “An acquaintance of ours has turned up dead on your doorstep, in Maine. His girlfriend, too.”
“Not quite on my doorstep,” Stone replied.
“Ah, yes, I believe he was aboard a small boat.”
“Correct, and his girlfriend was firing a Bushmaster at my yacht. She broke a window—two windows, in fact.”
“And was that grounds for terminal action on your part?”
Stone shook his head. “No, that would have required scratching the varnish.”
“Quite,” he replied. This was a British locution favored by Lance, who had received his early education at Eton and had never quite gotten over it. In this case it meant either “I believe you,” or perhaps, “I don’t believe you.”
Stone didn’t much care which.
“My recollection of your shooting skills does not include an ability to kill two birds with one .223 round,” Lance said.
“If you had such a recollection, it would be accurate,” Stone replied, “but a guest who practices that sort of thing happened to be aboard.”
“And armed.”
“Quite,” Stone replied.
Lance smiled his small smile again. “May one ask, with what?”
“With a higher and better iteration of the weapon to which it responded,” Stone said. “I didn’t see the maker’s name on it.”
“If it was in the possession of our old friend Mr. Rawls, I don’t expect you would have. I really must remember to have someone collect that bird and return it to its natural habitat.”
“That might turn out to be a dangerous endeavor,” Stone said. “Ed seems to have proprietary feelings toward it.”
“During the years of his service quite a number of items belonging to his employer seem to have leaped into Mr. Rawls’s hands, as if by magnetism.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Stone replied. “Dare I ask how you came to be acquainted with such vile assassins as Dirty Joe and Jungle Jane?”
“That is an unkind characterization,” Lance said, with mild reproval. “Mr. Cross served his country well for many years before he took his pension.”
“And then decided to augment it with the sort of work that earned him his sobriquet,” Stone pointed out.
“Our alumni sometimes turn a hand to one thing or another in retirement, after acquiring skills in our service.”
“Tell me,” Stone said, “where would the Agency find such a recruit as Joe Cross?”
“From a source more common than you might think,” Lance replied. “A reform school warden with an eye for talent.”
He held out a hand and examined his manicure. “Which brings me to our other subject.”
“What subject is that?” Stone asked, in spite of himself.
“One Gino Bellini.”
“Oh, my God,” Stone said, “don’t tell me he’s one of yours, too.”
“He was. Gino had a yen for luxuries he couldn’t afford on what we could offer him, so he didn’t serve out his term with us. His gifts found a higher market value elsewhere.”
“I know a state police officer in Maine who would be very grateful for that knowledge,” Stone said.
Lance looked at him sharply. “Stone, this conversation, like all of our conversations, is to be held in the strictest confidence. Surely I needn’t explain that to you each time we meet.”
“So you expect me to sit back and allow Mr. Bellini to assassinate my friend and colleague?”
Lance’s handsome countenance betrayed a tiny trace of concern. “And who might your friend and colleague be?”
“You disappoint me, Lance. A crack has appeared in your image of universal knowledge.”
“I’m afraid I must require an answer to my question,” Lance said.
“I refer to Meg Harmon.”
“Ah, the estimable Ms. Harmon! Inventor and entrepreneur!”
“All of that and more,” Stone replied. “What, isn’t she an old girl of your school?”
“I fear not. We can’t take on everybody.”
“And you’re telling me that you weren’t aware that Gino Bellini wanted her dead and recruited Dirty Joe to do the dirty work?”
“If he did so, he was way, way out of bounds,” Lance said. “I shall have to speak to him about that.”
“And give him ten of the best with your trusty cane, Headmaster?”
“Perhaps I had better expand your knowledge of things just a bit,” Lance replied.
29
Stone took a sip of his bourbon. “I am always ready to have my knowledge expanded,” he said.
“Perhaps you—and Ms. Harmon—are unaware that Gino Bellini’s skills were sought by . . . well, let us say, a competitor?”
“Ms. Harmon’s competitors possess deep skills already. Why would they seek Mr. Bellini’s?”
“Perhaps they were late to the gala,” Lance replied.
“How late?”
“Quite late—so much so that they need a great leap forward and are willing to purchase it at a premium.”
“From what little I know of Mr. Bellini, he would be unlikely to decline such an offer,” Stone said.
“He did not, strictly speaking, decline. Let us say that we declined on his behalf.”
“I didn’t know that you allowed your organization to meddle in the affairs of American businesses,” Stone said.
“We do not,” Lance replied. “We have not.”
“Ah,” Stone said, “my knowledge expands. So this business is offshore.”
“Not a business,” Lance replied. “Shall we call it a nation-state?”
“Why are we being so delicate, Lance? Why not call it what it is?”
Lance sighed. “Very well, if you insist—China.”
“So China doesn’t have a self-driving-car project?”
“Not one that is sufficiently advanced to compete with Ms. Harmon’s. And an offer that would seem rich to Mr. Bellini would jingle in the pocket of such a buyer.”
“So they find it cheaper to buy the technology than to originate it?”
“They would, if we allowed it.”
“And how do you prevent such a transaction between a foreign government and a private individual?”
“Now you’re sounding like a lawyer, Stone.”
“I do not represent either the seller or the buyer.”
“I hope you can understand that it is not in the interests of the United States government to allow a technology of such inestimable value to fall into the hands of what might charitably be described as a ‘competitor.’”
“I believe I grasp that. Did our government outbid the competition?”