Choppy Water

27

Holly had no idea what her hat size was. “On the rare occasions when I’ve bought a hat, I’ve just tried them on until one fits. I never thought about them coming in sizes.”

“Small, medium, or large?” Claire hazarded.

“I’m not a small or medium girl,” Holly replied. “What am I going to wear for a coat?”

“We’ll supply one from our own stock.”

“You mean it will be bulletproof.”

“Well, yes, but the big benefit is that it will put twenty pounds on your frame and make you look older.”

“That’s a benefit?”

“It is for this occasion. Once you’re at the White House, you can take it all off until the trip back to New York.”

Holly sighed, then went back to work having her clothes fitted.

Claire picked up the phone, called her Washington office, and wheedled a purchase order out of someone in accounting, then called her supplier. “She’s five ten or eleven, 140 pounds.”

“That would be tall and slim,” the man said. “How long do you want the coat?”

“Down to the mid-calf.”

“Got it. Gimme till the end of the day and an address.”

Claire gave him Stone’s address and the purchase order number and hung up.

Ten minutes later he called back. “I’ve got one in stock in black. How’s black?”

“Black is good.”

“Bye.” He hung up again.

“I heard that,” Holly said. “Black isn’t good for me. It makes me look like an old woman.”

“That’s the idea, ma’am. This is a disguise, remember?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m still in shopping mode.”

“This is what we could call the fool- ’em mode. The alternative is a detail of twenty-five men with shotguns and half a dozen armored SUVs. It’s expensive.”

“Who’s paying for this?”

“The Secret Service. We add it to our next budget request.”

Stone came up from downstairs. “Lunch in ten minutes,” he said. “What’s going on up here?”

Claire explained the plan to him.

“Cunning,” he said.

“Oh,” Holly said, “bill my transition team for the airplane.”

“It’s free of charge,” Stone said.

“No, that would be too much like graft. Then later, when you want something from me, people will say it’s a payoff for the airplane.”

“How much should I bill?”

“Whatever it would cost to charter the same airplane.”

“You’ll be shocked,” he said.

She shook her head. “The Treasury will be shocked, but they’ll spread the cost around, since there’ll be half a dozen Secret Service people and one Air Force pilot on board.”

Stone called Joan. “Please find out what it would cost to charter a Gulfstream 500 for an hour and a half flight to Manassas, Virginia, and a return flight in a few days.”

“Don’t you already have one of those?” Joan asked.

“Yes, but we have to figure out what to charge the transition team for it.” He hung up.

“This is going to cost twenty-five thousand dollars,” Holly said.

Joan rang back and told Stone the cost. He hung up. “Not even close,” he said. “It’s thirty-eight thousand dollars, each way.”

“We need the cheapest available price,” Holly said.

“That’s it. Joan called three services. Not all of them have a G-500 available.”

“If it were up to me, I’d hitchhike,” Holly said.

“You are hitchhiking,” Stone replied.

“Hitchhiking is free.”

“Free ain’t what it used to be,” Stone pointed out. “Now come to lunch.”

Lunch was a Caesar salad with chunks of chicken and a bottle of fizzy mineral water.

“You know,” Holly said, “the scale of all this is weighing heavily on me.”

“Get used to it,” Stone replied. “It’s not going to change.”

“At State, I was always trying to save a buck here and there.”

“The federal budget makes State’s look like the widow’s mite. Anyway, the cost of the airplane is spread over your transition, the Secret Service, and the Air Force, and maybe two or three other agencies we can’t think of at the moment. And they all move on money. Fuel costs money. Airports cost money — that’s why there are landing fees. It costs money to scrape the bugs off the windshield.”