Collateral Damage (Stone Barrington 25)

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Habib, looking through the restaurant window, saw the couple perusing the menu, and he got back into the Lincoln and drove back to Turtle Bay. The black SUV was still parked in front of the house, and its two occupants were reading newspapers.

He double-parked the Lincoln two blocks away and got a cab back to the West Side. Not wanting to get shot, he phoned Jasmine as he got out of the cab. “I’m home, honey,” he said. “Don’t blow my head off.” He inserted his key and let himself into the apartment.

Jasmine looked up from her Wall Street Journal. “Hey, you look great without the beard. How’d it go this evening?”

“Problematical,” Habib replied. “Do you know this Turtle Bay?”

“No.”

“I Googled it. It’s a neighborhood on the East Side that includes the United Nations, which is built on land created when the old Turtle Bay was filled in. Turtle Bay Gardens, which is where this Barrington lives, is a fashionable enclave of town houses built around a common garden. The actress Katharine Hepburn used to live in one of them. And this CIA woman, Holly Barker, is living there. We can’t get at her in the CIA building, but we can get at her at this house.”

“So, what kind of target is it?”

“The security on the place is holding. There are two men in a black SUV apparently permanently stationed out front, and our one successful foray into the garden turned up a man stationed

at the rear door.”

“What are its vulnerabilities?” Jasmine asked.

“There is an office on the ground floor. If we could get past the security and the house’s security system and pack it with explosives, it would bring the house down, along with the one next door, as well, but we can’t breach the outside door while those two agents are guarding the front of the house.”

“I have an idea,” Jasmine said, and she told him what it was.

“That could work,” Habib said. “But it would have to be in the middle of the night, and we’d have to block traffic at the corner for a short time, in order to accomplish what you want.”

“Where would the Barker woman and Barrington be in the middle of the night?”

“In bed at the upper rear of the house, I reckon. But if we brought down the building, they’d come down with it.”

“That’s the idea,” Jasmine said.

Jasmine woke up having discovered and, perhaps, solved a problem while she slept. She showered and dressed and walked into the living room, where Habib was having breakfast.

“I like the short haircut,” she said, joining him at the table and helping herself to the food.

“So do I,” Habib replied, running his fingers over his smooth face. “I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.”

“It’s a good thing you waited,” she said. “Made it easier to make a big change in your appearance.”

“I expect you’re right.”

“I thought about the Turtle Bay house last night,” she said.

“And?”

“We have to rethink it.”

“Why?”

“The way it’s set up now, we have to kill the two guards in the SUV out front, which may not be as easy as we think.” She held up a hand to stop him before she was interrupted. “And then we have to get the downstairs office door open quickly, which also may not be as easy as we think, and then we need to set up the device inside, run, then detonate it.”

“So?”

“Houses like that come with security systems, perhaps even very elaborate security systems. What does this guy Barrington do?”

“He has a cover as a lawyer, but he’s CIA.”