Hit List

15

They were having breakfast in bed, and Stone was enjoying the sight of Vanessa’s lovely, naked breasts protruding over the tray in her lap.

“I want to go shopping today,” she said.

“All right.”

“In London.”

“Can do. Shall we ask Dino and Viv to join us?”

“How about Mike?”

“He’s flying out for New York this morning.” He held up a finger and, in the quiet, the big Gulfstream could be heard taking off. “There he goes.”

“I’d love to have Viv and Dino along. A girl needs a girlfriend to shop with. You get an instant response that way. And you need a guy to talk with.”

“Good point.” Stone picked up the house phone and buzzed the butler. “Good morning, Geoffrey,” he said. “Would you have the Bentley brought around in an hour, please? And let the Bacchettis know we’re going to London for a couple of days. Thank you.” He hung up.

“You have a Bentley here, too?”

“Well, there’s a Porsche, but the back seat was designed for legless children.”

With the women in the rear seat, so they could talk uninterrupted, they set off from Windward Hall at ten o’clock in the Bentley, Stone having told the security chief from Strategic Services their plans. He drove into Beaulieu and made a few turns to give the car behind a view of anyone who might be following them, then took the London road and got onto the motorway.

“There’s a noise back here somewhere,” Vanessa said from the rear seat.

“What kind of noise?”

“Like wind. I thought the ads say, ‘At sixty miles per hour, the loudest noise is the ticking of the clock.’”

“We’re doing a hundred and ten,” Stone replied.

“Oh.”

Dino spoke up. “You’re going to get your ass put in a British jail,” he said. “Slow down.”

Stone brought it down to eighty. “There was a time,” he said, “when there was no speed limit on the motorway.”

“You can’t live in the past,” Dino replied.

They drove into Belgravia, to Wilton Crescent, where Stone’s house was, then into Wilton Row, the mews behind the house. Stone opened the garage door with the remote, then parked inside. Erskine, the male half of the couple who minded the house, took charge of the luggage, and they went across the mews to the Grenadier, Stone’s favorite London pub, and had a light lunch.

Dino looked slowly around the pub. “Mike didn’t give us a description of Sig Larkin, did he?”

“No, I don’t believe he did.”

“Have you got the satellite number?”

Stone produced his iPhone, went to Contacts, and pressed a button. “Hello, Mike.”

“Good day, Stone, we’re on final approach to Teterboro. Thank you again for your hospitality.”

“You’re very welcome. Can you give me a description of Sig Larkin?”

“Not really,” Mike said. “I remember muscular, but that’s all.”

“Height? Weight? Hair color?”

“Sorry, he’s one of those people who disappear into the wallpaper, and apparently, he took the time to scrub his file from our computers before he left. There, we’ve touched down. Later.” Mike hung up.

“Muscular,” Stone said.

“That’s it?” Dino asked.

“That’s it. Very ordinary-looking. He deleted his records at Strategic Services.”

“Swell.”

They finished lunch and went outside, where Erskine waited with the car. Stone gave Vanessa a house key, closed her car door, and the women drove away.

Stone and Dino had just settled into Stone’s study when his cell phone rang.

“Scramble,” Lance Cabot said.

“Scrambled.”

“You’re in London?”

“Spur of the moment.”

“Good idea to get out of town. Has Dino made any progress?”

Stone brought him up to date, including a report on Sig Larkin. “Can you see if you have anything on the guy? A description would be helpful.”

“Hang,” Lance said. Stone could hear the tapping of computer keys.

“Aha,” Lance said.

“Aha, what?”

“I’ve got him. Had to go down a couple of layers. Sigmund Larkin, born NYC, local schools, BA from City College of New York, a year at Fordham Law School, dropped out. Applied to FBI, spent three and a half years as a special agent, terminated ‘for cause,’ whatever that means.”

“What does it usually mean for the FBI?”

“Illegal activity, that sort of thing. I’d have to crack his FBI file to find out more, and they tend to resent that sort of thing. Still, I can take another route. I’ll put somebody on it.”

“Is there a physical description?”

“Age forty, five-ten, two hundred pounds, sandy hair. There’s a photograph.”

“Can you e-mail it to me?”

“Okay, done.”

Stone contemplated a sandy-haired nobody with indistinct features. “Thanks, Lance, it’s useless; probably fifteen, twenty years old.”

“We do what we can,” Lance said. “Gotta run.” He hung up.

Stone showed the photo to Dino.

“You’re right, useless,” Dino confirmed. “I wonder why we didn’t have a photo and that bio.”

“Maybe something to do with he used to be FBI?”

“Maybe somebody fucked with it.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“No, and neither does no bio and a useless photograph.”

“Maybe he has friends in the department.”

“Or he’s an ace computer hacker. I’ll look into that.”

Dino switched on the TV and found a cricket match; the game, unaccountably for an American, fascinated him.

“If you’re going to do that,” Stone said, “I’m taking a nap.” He moved to the leather sofa and arranged the cushions. “Let me know if anything at all happens that I should know about.”

“Sticky wicket,” Dino replied.

“What does that... oh, never mind.”

“Let me see that photo again,” Dino said.

Stone handed him his iPhone.

Dino nodded.

“Why are you nodding?”

“This guy was in the pub when we were having lunch,” he said.

“Where? I didn’t see him.”

“You weren’t looking for him. He was at the other end of the bar, drinking a large whisky at midday.”

“But...”

“It was Larkin.”