Shoot Him If He Runs (Stone Barrington 14)

“Nonsense,” Ferguson said. “Why the man is as sane as

I am.”

“That’s what I told everybody,” Kate said, “until…”

“Until what?”

“Well, there was an incident a couple of days ago during a staff meeting about…well, about a classified matter, and Hugh suddenly piped up and said, ‘We’ve got to get the man out, and quickly.’ That pretty much brought the proceedings to a halt, and somebody said, ‘Who, Hugh? And out of where?’”

“And what did Hugh say?”

“He said, ‘Nelson, of course; out of East Berlin.’”

“But East Berlin as a political entity doesn’t exist anymore,” Ferguson said.

“Exactly,” Kate replied, “and neither does Nelson, but at that moment, they both existed for Hugh. Someone had the presence of mind to say, ‘Right, I’ll get on it, Hugh,’ and the meeting continued, but Hugh got up and left. When I inquired about it, I was told that he had been exhibiting…memory issues and flashbacks. Someone thought it came on after his wife died.”

Ferguson looked perplexed. “We were going to call him in to testify next week.” Ferguson was the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

“Well,” Kate said, looking sympathetic, “if there’s anything the committee wants to know about East Berlin…” She ducked under his arm, put her own around her husband’s waist and, effectively, left Evelyn Ferguson to rejoin her husband.

“What was that all about?” Will asked.

“It was about neutralizing Hugh English,” she said. “By tomorrow morning, no one, not even the press, is going to pay attention to anything he has to say.”

“And how did you accomplish that?”

“My darling, you don’t want to know.”

49

Stone and Holly sat in their car on Black Mountain Road as dusk fell. Holly had produced a small pair of binoculars from her handbag and was training them, alternately, on the Pemberton and Weatherby houses, which could both be partly seen from their vantage point. They had already peered through the windows of the Robertson house and seen nothing out of the ordinary.

“What else have you got in that handbag?” Stone asked.

“Huh?”

“You keep pulling things out-a satphone, binoculars. What else is in there?”

“Oh, a couple of changes of clothing, a disguise or two, a bowling ball, a light machine gun-you know, the usual spy stuff.”

“I don’t think I want to walk through customs with you on the return trip.”

“Don’t worry; the duty is paid on everything.”

“Why are we sitting here? Why don’t we just go knock on both doors and see who opens them?”

“I want to see if any lights come on first,” she said. “That way, we’ll know if anybody’s home. I don’t want to approach the houses if anybody’s home.”

“Wait a minute; are you thinking of breaking and entering?”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, maybe alarm systems, attack dogs, security cameras. All we need is to give duBois an excuse to rearrest us.”

Suddenly, lights came on in the Pemberton house.

“There you are,” Stone said. “Somebody’s home.”