Severe Clear (Stone Barrington 24)

33

Everyone’s luggage was loaded into Stone’s and Dino’s cars, and they departed for Teterboro. The big Gulfstream 550 was parked outside the Jet Aviation terminal, and the crew supervised the loading of the luggage. Shortly, everyone was seated, and the big cabin gave everyone room for comfort.

The stewardess checked their seat belts and gave them the lecture about the oxygen masks and the life jackets, then the engines were started and shortly, the airplane began to roll. Runway One was active and their taxi was short. Stone watched as the pilot shoved the throttles forward, and they roared down the runway. For a while they were vectored at low altitude by ATC, until they were clear of the approaches to Newark Airport, then the aircraft climbed to its cruising altitude, and the stewardess brought everyone mimosas, straight orange juice for the kids.

Stone went forward to the cockpit. “Mind if I ride jump seat for a while?” he asked the pilot.

“Sure, make yourself at home. Do you fly?”

Stone sat down and buckled his seat belt. “Yes, I fly a Citation Mustang. I just wanted to see what you have in the way of avionics that I don’t have.”

The pilot gave him a tour of the G-550’s avionics suite. “What do we have that you don’t have?”

“Not much, I’m glad to say.”

Stone went back to the cabin and sat next to Felicity, who was very quiet. “Are you troubled about something?” he asked.

She shook her head but said nothing.

“Come on, Felicity, you’re not yourself. What’s bothering you?”

She sighed. “All right, it’s Algernon.”

“What have you learned?”

“I wanted to wait until we got to the hotel and speak directly with the Secret Service, but I don’t suppose it matters if I tell you.”

“Then tell me.”

“The name Algernon appeared in signals intercepted by our GCHQ facility, which is analogous to your NSA.”

“When?”

“A while back,” she said, “in July 2005, shortly before the suicide bomber attacks on the London underground.”

“Oh, shit,” Stone said.

“Well, yes.”

“Any more details?”

“The messages were similar to those more recently intercepted,” she said.

Stone waved at the stewardess and made telephone motions. She brought him a cordless satphone handset, and Stone dialed the number.

“Mike Freeman.”

“Mike, it’s Stone.”

“Good morning, Stone.”

“I have some news you need to get to the Secret Service detail.”

“Shoot.”

“The Brits at GCHQ intercepted previous messages with the code name ‘Algernon.’”

“Yes?”