Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

“Stone, it’s Lance. What the hell happened last night?”

“It’s all as Holly said,” Stone replied. “I watched a movie in the trailer with Estancia, and I got sleepy and went to bed. When I woke up Estancia wasn’t there. Then we heard the rear platform open and all ran aft. I saw Estancia at the wheel of the car, and I could see the shoulder straps of a parachute. Mike had briefed us earlier about where they were stored. Estancia started the car, put it in reverse, and disappeared into the night. There was just a story on the Today show about the car landing in somebody’s swimming pool in Rye, but there was nobody in it.”

“I saw that just now,” Lance said. “Thank God it didn’t fall on a school or hospital.”

“Looks like you’ve bought Estancia a very expensive airline ticket to the United States,” Stone said. “Are the police looking for him?”

“Ah, no,” Lance replied.

“Why not?”

“To call in the FBI or the police would attract too much notice. We can hardly put out an APB on him.”

“Doesn’t he owe the IRS millions? Let them find him.”

“I don’t want to wrestle the IRS for possession,” Lance said. “We’ll have to find another way.”

“Well, good luck,” Stone said. “Goodbye, Lance.” He hung up.

Pablo Estancia had arrived at his Park Avenue apartment, had breakfast, showered and shaved, then phoned his barber and made an appointment for mid-morning.

The man arrived at ten o’clock, set a dining chair in Estancia’s dressing room, and had a look at his head. “The usual?” the barber, who had not seen him for more than a year, asked.

“I’d like it shorter, please, and I’d like to lose most of the gray.”

“Of course,” the man said, and went to work.

After the barber left, Estancia looked in the mirror and thought he looked ten years younger. He looked in a dresser drawer and came up with a box containing various bits of false hair. He selected a couple of pieces, brushed them carefully, and applied a thin coat of rubber cement.

Holly Barker sat next to Todd Bacon in Lance Cabot’s office at the Agency’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters and let Lance vent.

“This is a total fiasco,” he said. “I thought you had this extraction planned down to the last detail.”

“We did,” Holly said, “but in our planning we somehow missed the possibility of the extractee driving a car out of the airplane and into a Rye, New York, swimming pool. I think Todd and I now realize that was an oversight,” she said wryly, “but I have to point out that, in approving the extraction, you didn’t spot that flaw in the plan, either.”

Todd wisely kept his mouth shut.

Lance stared out the window and smiled a little.

“What are you thinking?” Holly asked.

“I was just thinking that this would make a wonderful story for my memoirs, but the Agency’s censors would never allow it to be published.”

Stone was at his desk in the late morning when Joan buzzed him. “There’s a gentleman to see you,” she said. “He won’t give his name, but he says you know him.”

“Oh, what the hell,” Stone said. “It’s a slow morning; send him in.”

A man Stone had never seen before appeared in his office doorway. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties, was dressed in a well-tailored suit, and wore a dark mustache and goatee and heavy, horn-rimmed glasses.

Stone stood up as the man walked toward him with his hand out. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said.

The man laughed and took a chair. “I am Erwin Gelbhardt,” he said, “but you can call me Pablo.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Stone stared at the man for a moment, got it, then laughed, too. “You must have had an interesting morning,” he said.

Pablo gave him an account of his movements since departing the C-17, then he held up a hand. “Before we continue this conversation, I would like to retain you as my attorney.”