Severe Clear (Stone Barrington 24)

“Does he interest you?”

“Oh, no, I was just talking about having that connection. I wonder if Kate and her husband talk about work in bed.”

“You’ve got me there,” Stone said. “Would you like some breakfast?”

“May I have a full English breakfast?” she asked. “Eggs over easy, sausage, bacon, grilled tomato, tomato juice, and very strong coffee?”

Stone picked up the phone, buzzed Helene in the kitchen, and placed their orders.

“May I have a bath while we’re waiting?” Felicity asked.

“Of course. May I watch?”

“That might get dangerous,” she said, getting out of bed and walking across the bedroom to her bath. “I won’t be long.”

Stone’s phone rang. He looked at his watch: seven-thirty. Who the hell? He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“It’s Mike.”

“Good morning, Mike. You’re an early riser.”

“I’m getting reports that someone has completed the computer work that High Cotton’s Mr. Chang began, and that it’s in use.”

“Anything specific?”

“Someone called Algernon is communicating with the three men in a shoe or a boat, or whatever they’re in.”

“What sort of communications?”

“They’re meeting—we don’t know where.”

“This is the first we’ve heard of an Algernon, isn’t it?”

“It is. It sounds as though he’s running the three, and I’ll bet he’s hot off a plane from the Middle East.”

“Maybe you should speak with the Secret Service about this.”

“I have already done so, directly to Rifkin, who’s the AIC at The Arrington. Are you still on schedule to arrive tomorrow?”

“We’re wheels up at ten o’clock Teterboro tomorrow morning.”

“Good.”

“Oh, one other thing,” Stone said. “MI-6 is picking up the same traffic NSA is.”

“And you know this because?”

“I had . . . dinner with Felicity Devonshire last night.”

“Ah, Felicity!”

“She’s flying out with us to take a meeting with Kate Lee.”

“I wonder if she knows anything else of interest to us.”

“I wonder, too. I’ll press her on that subject.”

“Never hurts to triangulate on something like this.”