Lucid Intervals

46

Stone and Felicity lay, sweating and panting, in each other’s arms. They had awakened at daylight and had made love in various ways until they had both crashed and burned in an overwhelming mutual orgasm.

A noise pervaded the otherwise silent room. Stone frowned; he knew that noise. It was the clanging of an old British telephone, old enough that it didn’t have a volume control and, thus, loud enough to play havoc with an eardrum.

“That can’t be your cell phone, can it?” he asked.

She sat up in bed. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “They control that ring from the other end.” She scrambled out of bed and ran naked across the room to where she had left her purse. “It’s the sound of a red telephone ringing,” she said, digging through her bag. “Yes, Minister?” she said, finally.

Stone could hear the tinny blare of a man shouting from across the Atlantic.

“Yes, Minister,” Felicity said. “Yes, Minister.” There was a long pause and more blaring. Then Felicity said emphatically, “No, Minister. Most certainly not on the available evidence.” She held the phone away from her ear as the shouting resumed.

Stone could nearly understand the shouted words. He was almost certain he heard the word termination, but he could not be sure in what context.

“Then I suggest you do exactly that, Minister,” Felicity said. “I have one or two other suggestions for you that I may offer at a later date, but you may have my resignation within the hour if that is your wish.” She held the phone away again, in anticipation of more loud noises.

This time Stone thought he heard a more placating sound.

“Perhaps we should talk later in the day, Minister,” she said, “when we have both had time to consider our positions. Good-bye, Minister.” She snapped the phone shut and threw it at her pillow, which was next to Stone.

Stone picked up the phone and placed it on the bedside table next to him. “Come here,” he said, raising an arm. She got back into bed and snuggled close to him.

“I knew he would go off the deep end,” she said.

“Which minister was that?” Stone asked. “Foreign or home?”

“It’s better you don’t know,” she replied.

“From what little I just heard, I would suspect that your position is stronger than you may have thought.”

“Yes,” she replied, “he did climb down off his high horse just a bit toward the end, didn’t he?”

“I also suspect he has realized that, if he can’t get you to do what he wants you to, he has little chance of getting your replacement to do it, either.”

“I hope that is true,” she said, “but if he digs down deep enough in the dung heap, he’ll find somebody who will cheerfully accomplish that particular mission.”

“Dare I ask what that mission is?” Stone asked.

“You dare not,” she said.

“Because then you’d have to kill me?”

“Ha!” she said. “Finally you’ve found a situation that fits that cliché.”

“You did the right thing,” Stone said. “If he sacks you, then you can spend more time with me.”

“Yes, and more time with my horses and dogs, too.”

“The dogs, maybe, depending on how many you have. I don’t think I can house the horses.”

“Then you would just have to come and see me, wouldn’t you? I’ll introduce you to the English country life.”

“Would I enjoy it, do you think?”

“You’d be bored rigid, I do think.” She explored his crotch with a hand. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

STONE WALKED OVER to Jim Hackett’s offices in something of a quandary. He had two clients whose interests were antithetical to each other’s, and he was being forced to choose sides. He did not want to choose sides.

Hackett received him with his usual good cheer. “Coffee?” he asked, waving at a silver Thermos on the table before the sofa.

“Thank you, yes,” Stone replied.

“You look tired,” Hackett said. “First time I’ve seen you look tired.”

“A little,” Stone said, sipping the strong coffee. A large shot of caffeine was what he needed.

“Yesterday you seemed to absorb quickly what Mike and I had to tell you.”

“Thank you. I found it extremely interesting.”

“This company’s activities are a lot to absorb in a single day,” Hackett said, “but you’ll have other opportunities to learn more.”

“Jim,” Stone said, “yesterday you spent a lot of time telling me about the company’s personal protection services.”

“I suppose I did. Do you require personal protection?”

“No,” Stone said, “but I’m afraid you do.”

“I don’t have even one bodyguard,” Hackett said. “I travel alone or with an assistant. The only times I’m guarded are in combat zones, like Iraq and Afghanistan. What do you know that I don’t know, Stone?”

“The odd thing is, I don’t know anything. I only suspect, but I suspect that you should be in a place, at least for a while, where you can see a threat coming from more of a distance than you can on a New York City street.”

Hackett crossed his legs and stared out the window at the city skyline. “Felicity has been talking, has she?”

“No,” Stone replied, “she hasn’t. She’s said absolutely nothing. This morning I was privy to one side of a transatlantic telephone conversation, and while I couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end, I was alarmed by her reactions.”

“Can you tell me any more than that?”

“I don’t know anything more than that.”

“All right, then,” Hackett said. “I accept that. I don’t suppose your relationship with Felicity precludes you from offering advice, does it?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Then what would you advise me to do?”

“I believe I would advise you to disappear for a while, to go to someplace-Maine, perhaps-no, some place not known to me, so I can’t inadvertently give you away. I think you should abbreviate your communications with this office to the bare minimum or communicate through third parties, and I don’t think you should use a cell phone or any landline known to anyone else. I think you should stay indoors, not in view of the sky, and that you should post armed guards around you.”

Hackett did not respond for a long moment, then, finally, he said, “It’s as bad as that, is it?”

“I hope I’m wrong,” Stone replied, “but I believe it is as bad as that.”