Then it dawned on Stone that the man had thought he was talking to Dick. “I’m a little slow on the uptake,” he sa
id aloud, then hung up the phone. He locked up the office, went back to the desk and called Lance’s cell phone.
“Yes?”
“It’s Stone.”
“Hello”
“Dick just got a call in his other office.”
“You mean the phone rang?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until I answered it.”
“You answered Dick’s hotline?”
“Is that what it is?”
“Yes, did you answer it?”
“Yes.” Stone told him about the conversation, such as it was.
“He said Kirov?”
“Yes.”
“Like the ballet company in St. Petersburg?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure he said Kirov?”
“Positive. And he had a heavy accent, maybe Russian, maybe Eastern European.”
“Kirov is a code word,” Lance said.
“You think?”
“It means that something has happened.”
“What?”
“Or that something is going to happen.”
“What has happened or is going to happen?”
“I don’t know; I’ll have to do some checking with London.”
“Okay. If something is going to happen, I’d like to know about it.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“Okay.”