Lucid Intervals (Stone Barrington 18)

“Please. I’d like a steak, medium rare, and a baked potato laden with whatever they have to offer. Wine, too.”

Stone ordered the same for both of them and a bottle.

Felicity turned down the volume on the TV but left it on. “I believe I’m being sought on both sides of the Atlantic,” she said, “and I won’t survive being found.”

“Why do you think that?” Stone asked.

“Your Smith story, for one thing,” she said. “He’s a fairly timid man, and he wouldn’t be pointing guns at you, unless he’d been so instructed. I think that, if I’d been there, he’d have shot me.”

“Then your government has turned on you,” Stone observed.

“Some of my government, at least: that part of it who are afraid of Palmer and Prior.”

“And where is the PM in all this?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Are you going to be safe in London?”

“As long as no one knows I’m there,” Felicity replied. “Or everyone.”

DINNER ARRIVED, AND they dined in front of the TV, but the only new story was one saying that a morning London paper had gotten the story wrong, that Palmer and Prior-or the two P’s, as the press called them-were still in their offices. Stone, not understanding all the ins and outs of current British politics, was baffled, but Felicity didn’t seem inclined to explain things to him. She was obviously thinking hard.

At a quarter to nine the phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “Yes?”

“Is the package ready for pickup?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Not until tomorrow at twelve.”

“A bellman will come for the luggage first, then someone will come for the two of you.”

“All right.” The line went dead. Five minutes later the doorbell rang, and Stone saw a uniformed bellman through the peephole. He opened the door, allowed the man to retrieve their luggage from the bedroom, tipped him and closed the door.

At nine o’clock the bell rang again, and a check of the peephole revealed a man in what appeared to be an airline uniform with a raincoat over his arm and a large bouquet of flowers in his other hand. Stone opened the door.

“Mr. Barrington?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Don Quint, the first officer for your flight.” The man handed him the raincoat. “There’s a folded hat in the pocket. Please put them both on.”

He turned toward Felicity. “Dame Felicity?”

“Yes.”

He walked over and handed her the flowers. “If we encounter anyone, anyone at all, on the way out, please hide behind these.”

She accepted the flowers, and the two of them followed the man down the hallway, away from the main elevators. They took a service elevator to the ground floor, which opened into a kitchen, then followed the man through a scullery and out into East Fifty-eighth Street, where a black stretch Mercedes with darkened windows awaited.

The man in the airline uniform opened the rear door for them and relieved Felicity of the flowers. Then he got into the front passenger seat.

Mike Freeman was already in the car, sitting in a jump seat. “Good evening,” he said, and the car drove away. “Take the tunnel,” he said to the driver.

“Thanks for your help, Mike,” Stone said.

“I’m happy to be of service,” he replied. “I think you should both know that something odd has happened in the reporting of this story in London.”

“We noticed,” Felicity replied.