Hot Pursuit

33

Stone and pat were downstairs at nine AM sharp, and Tony met them with the Jaguar and turned over the keys. “It’s keyless entry, Mr. Barrington, and there’s a start button, but your foot must be on the brake. The knob on the center console is the gearshift, foot on the brake again. The engine is a diesel, and the tank is full. There’s a GPS navigator built in. Would you like instructions?”

“I can handle that, Tony,” Pat said.

Tony handed her some maps. “These might come in handy at times,” he said.

The bellman arrived with their luggage and stowed it in the boot. Stone tipped him, thanked Tony for his help, tipped him, and they drove the car out through a short tunnel into Buckingham Gate. Stone followed the road to Buckingham Palace, around the roundabout, and thence to Hyde Park Corner, from where they headed west.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to make a stop,” Pat said.

“Where?”

“Stonehenge.”

“Put it into the GPS.” She did, and a voice began to speak in BBC English.

“Pat,” Stone said, “I have to ask you something.”

“Anything you like.”

“Is there anything you haven’t told me about Kevin Keyes?”

“A great deal. I’ve told you only the basics.”

“Is there anything else I should know about him that might be relevant in the circumstances?”

“You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“It troubles me that he got out of New York and to England so easily.”

“Well, as you said, his name wasn’t on a flight plan. You told the police about eAPIS, didn’t you?”

“What is that?”

“I thought you knew about it. I took care of it before our departure.”

“Took care of what?”

“It’s a sort of registry. You have to notify the government before you leave the country, and you have to list the crew and passengers, their dates of birth and passport numbers.”

“Where did you get my date of birth and passport number?”

“From Joan, where else?”

“And Paul Reeves would have had to file that report?”

“I suspect that Kevin filed it for him, as I did for you. He would have omitted his own name and information, of course, and nobody would know, unless they had a ramp check for documents, et cetera.”

“I’ve never been ramp checked,” Stone said. “How would that go?”

“Officials in the relevant country would ask to see your aircraft registration, airworthiness certificate, radio station license, proof of international insurance, weight and balance calculations, plus your RVSM and MSNP authorizations — those were the papers you signed. They’d also check to see that the airplane’s flight manual and avionics manual were aboard and that you had the required safety equipment — life raft, life jackets, et cetera, and they would check our licenses and medical certificates, in addition to our passports.”

“The only place where anyone showed the slightest interest in any of that was in Iceland, where they asked for our passports, but didn’t look inside the airplane.”

“That is correct. It’s also quite common for general aviation aircraft and crews on the Blue Spruce route not to be checked too closely.”

“So if Keyes wanted to bring a gun into Britain, he wouldn’t have had any problem?”

“Only if they found it during a ramp check. I mean, the authorities at every stop have the right to make you empty the airplane and unpack your luggage, if they want to.”

“Then I’ll just assume that Keyes, wherever he is, is armed.”

“Look, we’ve only set eyes on Kevin once, at the restaurant. You’ve no reason to believe that he’s looking for us, so don’t let it bother you.”

“That’s true, but we’ve seen Paul Reeves everywhere, and that bothers me a lot. I can’t help having a bad feeling about this.”

“Stone, I don’t know what to tell you. Do you want to just pack this in and go home? If you want to fly commercial, I’ll arrange for a good pilot to fly your airplane home.”

“No, of course not. Anyway, where we’re going today nobody could find us.”

“Oh? Where is that? All I can see on the GPS map is a checkered flag in the middle of nowhere.”

“That’s a pretty good description of where we’re going. You’ll see, later in the day.”

They spent an hour being amazed at Stonehenge, then continued their trip west on surface roads, which were alternately choked and lightly traveled, things improving as they left the tourist attraction behind. They stopped at a country pub and had a lunch of sausages and mash, then continued. The GPS predicted they would arrive at their destination at five-thirty PM. Half an hour before that, the roads had dwindled in size until they were down to a single track between high hedgerows.

“What is this place we’re going to?” Pat asked, laughing. “Has anyone ever been here before, except farm animals?”

Now and then they had to deal with a car or farm vehicle going in the opposite direction, which involved one of them reversing into a slightly wide indentation in the hedgerows and allowing the other to pass, or wait for a cow to make up her mind about where she was going. Encouragingly, they saw a sign or two for Gidleigh Park.

“What is Gidleigh Park?” Pat asked. “Some sort of tourist attraction?”

“Sort of, if the tourist is very discerning.”

Then they saw an occasional farmhouse and suddenly, they were at a side door of a very large house, in the Tudor style, and their luggage was being taken inside.

Pat peeked into various rooms as they followed their bags down the main hallway, then they were in a comfortable suite. “I think,” she said, “that as hideaways go, this one is top-notch. I smelled something good cooking, too.”

“Oh, they’ve won all sorts of awards over the years, including Best Restaurant in Britain, I think.”

“Did you find this when you were hitchhiking?”

“No, much later. I met the original owners, Paul and Kay Henderson, in London during their first summer in operation, and I’ve been back a couple of times since then.”

“Will we meet them?”

“No, they retired a few years ago. They live nearby but are, apparently, away for a few days.”

They unpacked, and without any discussion, got naked and fell into bed. Soon they were ready for a nap.