Strategic Moves (Stone Barrington 19)

Bacon stared at him for a moment, then his window slid shut and the SUV drove away.

Stone let himself into the house feeling better.

FORTY-TWO

At nine the following morning the group sat down. Stone spoke first, to Lance. “I sent you a message last night. Was it delivered?”

“It was,” Lance replied.

“Do we have an understanding that all this nonsense will end as of this moment?”

Lance didn’t speak right away.

“Or we can shut this down right now,” Stone said.

“Pablo won’t be followed,” Lance said.

“I don’t know what else you’re cooking up, Lance, but I can tell you right now, I won’t tolerate it.”

“All right,” Lance said through clenched teeth.

“Pablo,” Stone said, “you may continue.”

Pablo began recounting details of further arms sales. After a few minutes, Lance stopped him.

“The name you just gave us is not in our databases,” Lance said.

Stone assumed that whoever was watching at Langley was running names through their computers and communicating with Lance through an earpiece.

“Often my buyers employ noms de guerre,” Pablo said. “I do not always know their names.”

“Describe the man you just mentioned,” Lance said.

Pablo immediately gave a detailed description.

“Thank you,” Lance said. “Proceed.”

Pablo took up where he had left off.

At the end of the day Lance called Stone aside. “My technical people tell me that we are having gaps in the video and audio sent from your house,” he said.

“Any of these gaps occur during Pablo’s testimony?” Stone asked.

“Not so far.”

“I am entitled to privacy in my own home and in my consultations with clients,” Stone said. “Neither Pablo nor I signed up to have our private conversations recorded by your people.”

“All right,” Lance said, “but when this is over I am going to want to know how you did it. My people are driving me crazy.”

“We’ll see,” Stone said.

On the third day of Pablo’s testimony, the CIA team began asking a lot more questions, many of them very pointed, but Pablo always responded immediately and smoothly. At the end of the day Stone took Pablo into his library and employed Cantor’s device.

“Pablo,” Stone said, “are you beginning to withhold information in your answers to their questions?”

“I am not,” Pablo said.

“I’m beginning to get the feeling that the people listening to us back at Langley have information about your activities that disagrees with your account of events, and they are communicating their doubts to Lance and his team.”