Lucid Intervals

55

The three of them sat at dinner, prepared by Seth’s wife, Mary, eating quietly. Mike Freeman’s reticence seemed to affect them all.

“Did you call all your clients?” Stone asked him, in an effort at conversation.

“Just about,” Freeman replied.

“How are they taking it?”

“Shock, mostly.”

“Did you tell them he was murdered?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Freeman replied. “It’s probably already on the evening news.”

Stone polished off his wine and set down the glass. “Let’s go find out,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s almost six-thirty.”

He led Freeman and Felicity into the living room and switched on the lights and the big flat-screen TV.

“Earlier today,” the anchorman was saying, “James Hackett, the head of the worldwide security firm Strategic Services, was shot to death by a sniper at a friend’s home on an island in Maine.”

There followed an interview with Captain Scott Smith. “We have no suspects at this time,” he said, “but the case bears the earmarks of a professional killing.”

They watched as various experts were interviewed. All suggested a contract murder. The news show moved on to other stories.

Freeman turned to Felicity. “What about you?” he asked. “Any idea who might be responsible for this?”

“Listen,” Stone said, pointing at the TV.

“This breaking news just in,” the anchorman said. “A London newspaper is reporting that the director of MI6, the British foreign intelligence service, is charging that Foreign Minister Douglas Palmer and Home Secretary Eric Prior are jointly complicit in the murder of James Hackett. The paper goes on to say that Palmer and Prior believed that Hackett was a former MI6 agent named Stanley Whitestone, who disappeared twelve years ago, and that the two cabinet ministers held him responsible for the deaths of Palmer’s daughter and Prior’s son at that time. We hope to have more on this before the program’s end.”

Felicity turned toward Stone. “Can I get to your fax machine in Dick’s office?” she asked. “It’s late in London; I may have something by now.”

Stone unlocked his cousin’s little office. Felicity went to the fax machine and came back with a couple of sheets of paper. The headline screamed:

FOREIGN MINISTER AND HOME SECRETARY BLAMED BY MI6 IN MURDER OF U.S. SECURITY FIRM CHIEF

Felicity handed the other sheet to Freeman.

Freeman read it. “And I thought Jim was being paranoid,” he said. “He predicted what would happen.”

Stone spoke up. “You mean, when he told you about this you didn’t believe him?”

“Jim had a way of drawing worst-case implications from any problem,” Freeman said. “It worked for him in business a lot of the time, but I’ll admit, this sounded a bit far-fetched to me. Obviously, I was wrong.”

“You can take some comfort in the fact that he acted on his instincts by coming up here,” Stone said. “Have you any idea how the assassin might have located him?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Freeman said. “How did he contact you and ask you to come up here?”

“He gave me a prototype of a phone scrambler your people are working on,” Stone replied. “I got a call from him last night.”

“Then that has to be it,” Freeman said.

“You mean a scrambled message was intercepted? Didn’t the thing work?”

“It worked between landlines and landlines,” Freeman replied, “but I just learned this morning that some cell towers have not yet been equipped with the requisite electronics to scramble every call when one end of the conversation is from a cell phone.”

“But how could they intercept a cell phone call from up here? They wouldn’t have known where it was.”

“They could intercept it from your phone,” Freeman said.

“Remember,” Felicity interjected, “the foreign secretary knew you were in touch with Hackett.”

Freeman looked at Stone. “I don’t understand,” he said.

Felicity spoke up. “I hired Stone to help find Stanley Whitestone,” she said.

“Was Jim Whitestone?” Stone asked.

Freeman shook his head. “I don’t know. If he was, he never confirmed it to me.”

“Tell me,” Stone said, “if Jim were Whitestone, would he have had the resources to establish an identity as Hackett twelve years ago?”

“Yes, but he would have had to establish that identity longer ago than that. Still, he could have done it.”

Felicity went to the bar and poured herself a brandy, then went and stood at the window, looking out on the harbor. A big moon was rising as the sun set, illuminating the boats at their moorings.

There was a slapping noise, and Felicity emitted an involuntary shout and fell to the floor.

Stone dove for the light switch, and the room went dark. He crawled across the floor past Freeman to where Felicity lay and turned her over.

“I’m all right,” she said. “What was that? There was this noise right in front of me.”

Freeman spoke up. “I can see from here,” he said. “The window is broken, but it didn’t shatter.”

Stone crawled out of the living room and found a flashlight in a kitchen drawer. He got down and crawled back to Felicity, then played the light on the broken window. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “There’s a bullet stuck in the glass.”

“Impossible,” Freeman said.

“No, all the glass in this house is armored. The CIA installed it when Dick was building the house.” He held the light steady, so Freeman and Felicity could see.

“Well, thank God for the CIA!” Felicity said.

Stone got out his cell phone and called Captain Scott Smith’s office and was transferred to his cell.

“Captain Scott Smith,” he said.

“Captain, it’s Stone Barrington. Our assassin is still out there; he just took a shot at my house. Fortunately, the armored glass stopped the bullet.”

“I’ll get a chopper over there right away,” Smith said.

“Hang on,” Stone said. He crawled to the back door and opened it. The sound of a boat’s engine could be heard leaving the harbor. He looked outside. “Captain, there’s a boat leaving the harbor right now. It’s just turning the point, headed south. It’s not wearing any nav lights.”

“We’re on it,” the captain said. “I’ll call you if we have any luck.” He hung up.

Stone stood up. “I think we’re all right now,” he said, helping up Felicity, who was still clutching her glass of brandy. “You didn’t spill a drop,” he said.

“Well,” she replied, “it’s awfully good brandy.”