Double Jeopardy

43

Everybody was quiet at lunch, until Primmy spoke up, interrupting everybody’s half-nap. “Why are Ed and Sally not joining us?” she asked.

“In the circumstances,” Stone replied, “he wants to stick close to home.”

“Why is he safer there than here?” she asked.

“There, he knows that when he walks through the front door, there won’t be two guys with shotguns waiting for him.”

“I see. What’s Ed’s story? I heard you or somebody say ‘ex-CIA,’ but that’s all.”

“That’s correct. Ed had thirty years or so, as an operative and station head. One of the best, by all accounts. Then he made a mistake.”

“I’ll bet ‘mistake’ is spelled ‘w-o-m-a-n.’”

“You’d win money on that bet.”

“Details, please. And dirt, too.”

“Okay, after a long and extraordinary career, Ed was serving his out-the-door-and-into-his-pension posting as station chief in Stockholm.”

“Uh-oh, Swedish woman.”

“That would have been too smart,” Stone replied. “Ed took up with a senior Russian diplomat’s wife, true love and all that.”

“Oops.”

“You betcha, oops. They were caught in flagrante delicto in a hotel suite that had thoughtfully been equipped by the KGB with high-definition video and audio equipment. Although I’m told the footage was highly complimentary of Ed’s skills, the Russians were more interested in what he knew while operating vertically, and they pressed him hard for that. Ed was too smart to give them anything but what a secretarial intern might have, but the Agency turned one of the KGB boys in Stockholm and he brought along Ed’s home movies as a bargaining chip, as well as for the entertainment value. The Justice Department was inclined to go easy on Ed. But he, inevitably, had made a few enemies at the Agency on his way up the ladder, and they wanted him to take a hard fall, rather than have a soft landing.”

“Poor Ed.”

“Indeed. He got twenty years. Fast-forward a few, and he performed — from prison, mind you — services of considerable value to the country. Plus, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the Moscow station got a look at what the KGB had got from Ed, and it was laughable, almost a service to the country. There was a move afoot for a new trial, but that would have taken a long time, so the president gave him a full pardon. His time-in-service was restored, as was his pension. And though he still had enemies at Langley, he made a new life for himself. His marriage was gone, of course, but he managed very well. The Agency sometimes still employs him for special-mission stuff.”

“Is that what he’s doing now?” Carly asked.

“Let’s just say that my cousin Dick Stone was a highly valued intelligence operative and executive who was about to move into the deputy director for operations job, the second highest in the Agency, and they did not take the murder of their fairest-haired boy lightly. They do harbor a vengeful streak that, at times, rears its head.”

“Did the twins murder Dick Stone?” Carly asked.

“Without conclusive evidence to back me, I take the view that they did. Nothing I learned at the time or since has made me doubt my conclusion for a moment.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Primmy said. “I’m aboard. Do with me as you will.”

“Same here,” Carly said.

“I understand that you two and Ed Rawls have already made a plan.”

“We have nothing to say about that,” Carly replied.

“Well, before you two go charging off into the Valley of Death, I’d like to know if you are fully aware of the dangers attendant to so doing. I mean, it’s not called the Valley of Death for nothing.”

“We are fully aware,” Primmy said, “and we are confident of walking away from this with our heads firmly attached to our shoulders.”

“Cannon to the left, cannon to the right,” Stone said.

“Nevertheless, neither snow nor rain nor sleet nor gloom of night will stay us from the swift conclusion of our appointed duties.”

“That is a misquotation and a horribly chosen metaphor,” Stone said. “But I’ll take your word, such as it is, and trust Ed Rawls to keep you alive.”