Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

“I’m glad we’re not in Palm Beach,” she said, throwing a leg over his.

“I’m glad, too,” Stone said, then he turned his attention entirely to her needs.

After lunch the following day, Stone left the house alone and drove out to the airfield. There had been a little snow in the night, and he wanted to see if he was going to have an icing problem with the airplane.

The sun was well up, though, and what snow there may have been on the airframe had melted. Stone was about to get back into the old Ford when suddenly there was a helicopter over the runway. It was black, and he noticed that there was no registration number on the fuselage.

The chopper settled slowly, then a rear door opened and someone beckoned for him to approach. Stone walked over to the helicopter, and Lance Cabot leaned forward from a rear seat and offered his hand. Stone shook it, then other hands grabbed him and hoisted him aboard the aircraft. The door slammed, and the chopper rose straight up, then banked and turned south.

“What the hell is this?” Stone shouted over the noise of the rotor.

Lance pointed at his ear and mouthed, “Can’t hear you,” then he motioned for Stone to sit back in his seat, and another man buckled his seat belt.

They flew south for ten minutes across Penobscot Bay, then the helicopter descended and set down on a small island. The engines were cut, and the rotor spun down, then Lance and his two aides, along with Stone, got out and walked toward a large house fifty yards away.

“What is this place?” Stone asked. “And what the hell am I doing here?”

“I thought we’d have a chat,” Lance said as they climbed the steps to the front porch. They shed their coats in the entrance hall and Lance led Stone to a paneled library overlooking a rocky beach. He poured them both a brandy, and they sat down.

“Whose place is this?” Stone asked, grateful for the warmth of the brandy.

“It’s a rental, sort of,” Lance replied. “Belongs to an alumnus of the Agency. We use it for various tasks in the off-season. Right now there’s a Chinese agent upstairs in one of the bedrooms, being turned, I should expect.”

“Is this where you called me from?”

“Yes. As we flew in yesterday, I saw Jim Hackett’s little Mustang at the Islesboro field, so I knew you were here.”

So Lance was not all-knowing, after all, Stone thought. “You shouldn’t have told me that,” he replied. “I was terribly impressed with your knowledge of my whereabouts. And, by the way, the airplane is mine now. Hackett left it to me in his will.”

“You are a great inheritor of things, aren’t you, Stone? Your house in New York is from an aunt, I believe.”

“Great-aunt.”

“Then Dick Stone’s house, and now a jet airplane. You’re a fortunate fellow.”

“I suppose I am at that,” Stone said.

“Well, if you’re a nice fellow, nice things happen to you, don’t they?”

“If you say so,” Stone replied warily. He had the feeling something not so nice was about to happen to him.

“I expressed my displeasure with you yesterday, on the phone,” Lance said. “Now I want to expand on that a little.”

“You don’t need to expand, Lance; I’m well aware of your displeasure.”

“I thought it might help if I gave you a little background.”

“All right.”

“Will Lee, as you know, is now in his last term as president, and that means his wife, the lovely Katharine Rule Lee, is in her last years as our director.”

Stone nodded and sipped his brandy.

“Things are always changing in the intelligence game, but because of the president’s two terms and what turned out to be Kate’s calming presence, we at the Agency have had a rather long period of stability. There have been blips along the way, of course, among them various problems associated with the work of outside contractors.”

“Yes, I’ve read about those in the papers,” Stone said. “Particularly about the murder trial of a few of your mercenaries.”

“We do not accept that term,” Lance said. “These people are patriotic Americans, not simply hired guns. They actually save us money by performing many chores peripheral to our actual missions. We don’t have to train their people, you see; most are ex-military or ex-Agency or ex-something else, so they arrive with the requisite skill set.”