The Short Forever (Stone Barrington 8)

“Then don’t try to figure it out.”

“Makes perfect sense to me,” Dino chipped in from the backseat.

“What does?”

“The whole thing. Hedger hires you to look into Cabot because he’s afraid if he uses his own people Cabot will figure it out, because, having been one of them, he knows how they operate. Cabot researches you, figures you were telling the truth when you said you were no longer working for Hedger.”

“I did tell the truth,” Stone said. “Eventually.”

“Yeah. Once Cabot thinks you’re not working for Hedger, he figures you for a mark.”

“God knows, that’s true.”

“The Israelis obviously want whatever Cabot is buying, and so does Hedger.”

“But the American government already has access to this technology, doesn’t it?” Stone asked Carpenter.

Carpenter looked momentarily uncomfortable. “Not necessarily,” she said.

Dino continued. “Makes even more sense,” he said. “The Brits build this . . . thing . . . and they don’t share their little secret with the Americans, so Hedger and his people are pissed off.”

“But why me?” Stone asked.

“You’re not some unknown person,” Dino said. “You get your name in the papers now and then. That’s probably how you came to Hedger’s attention—that, or your old professor buddy down at NYU dropped your name on somebody he used to know.”

“And who would the professor be?” Carpenter asked.

“Samuel Bernard,” Stone replied. “He was one of my professors in law school.”

“That bloke is a bloody legend,” she said, wonder in her voice.

“I knew he had a lot of connections, but I didn’t know he qualified as a legend.”

“He was offered the directorship of central intelligence at one time; turned it down and went to NYU, but word is, he kept his hand in. Once you’ve been at that level in the agency, you don’t just get put out to pasture.” She whipped off the motorway, made a left, drove another half a mile, and turned onto a smaller road, keeping her speed at what Stone figured was about twenty miles an hour more than the car was capable of on that road.

Stone hung onto the door handle and tried not to look at the winding black tarmac rushing at him. Dino, on the other hand, seemed perfectly awake.

“Looks like everybody knows what’s going on here except you, Stone,” he said.

“Oh, I think you’ve explained it to him very well, Dino,” Carpenter said, whipping around a hairpin turn. “You missed your calling; you’re wasted as a policeman.”

“Don’t you believe it,” Dino replied. “I wouldn’t get mixed up in your business for anything. You can never trust anybody.”

“Not a bad policy,” she replie

d. “Is it any better on the NYPD?”

“Marginally,” Dino said.

“Where are we going?” Stone asked.

“Right up there,” Carpenter replied. They had emerged from a stand of trees onto an open, rolling plain with few trees. Ahead of them a mile or so, at a crossroads, was a three-story stone building, which got larger fast. Carpenter skidded into the parking lot, which was nearly full, and got out of the car. “Come on,” she said.

Stone saw two men on a ladder stringing a cable from a utility pole on the road to a corner of the building. He looked at the sign: THE BREWER’S ARMS, it read. He followed Carpenter inside.

53

THEY WALKED UP TO THE THIRD FLOOR of the country inn, past a guard, and into a roomy, two-bedroom suite, which contained half a dozen men, most in their shirtsleeves, and several pieces of electronic equipment—radios, computers, and two large, flat-screen monitors. Thick wires ran from the equipment out a window, where Stone had seen the two men stringing wire, and he could see a small satellite dish mounted to the windowsill.