Stealth

47

Holly had to be back in London for meetings, so Stone took the Cayenne and drove her to the city. “About your suite at the Connaught...”

“What about it?”

“If we stay there will we end up as sex entertainment for a bunch of guys at the embassy?”

“We will not. I have ordered it so, and I have a gadget that detects the presence of surveillance equipment. I used it in your bedroom.”

“In my bedroom?”

“Look, Stone, we are aware that you have attracted the attention of the world’s three most important spy agencies, if we leave out the Chinese. Do you think that any one of them would hesitate to wire your home for audio and video, if they felt it served their interests?”

“You have a point,” Stone replied. “Thank you for bringing the equipment.”

“Your entire house is clean, as far as I can tell.”

“Good.”

“Is anyone following us?”

“Now? We’re on the motorway.”

“Do you think those three incapable of tailing you on a superhighway?”

“I suppose I don’t,” he replied, checking his rearview mirror. “I don’t see anything.”

“Keep checking,” Holly said.

“Why would they want to follow us?”

“If not you, then me.”

“Do you care?”

“Of course I care. Suppose you drive carelessly, cause a fender-bender, and it turns into an altercation. Do you want to see that on CNN?”

“I suppose not.”

“I’m certain I don’t want to see that,” she said firmly. “When I get back I’m faced with a national campaign, and I don’t want the nation to witness me punching some jerk’s lights out.”

“So, you’re not worried about being the victim of road rage, but the perpetrator?”

“I have a temper, and when you combine that with certain skills...”

“I must remember not to annoy you.”

“Always a good policy,” she said.

“Are you smiling?”

“Not at the moment.”

“Just checking.” He looked into the rearview mirror again. “There’s one of those big Mercedes vans back there.”

“A Sprinter?”

“That’s the one. It was back there last time I checked, too. It hasn’t gained on us.”

“Assume it’s following us then, and be careful.”

The van stayed there all the way to the Connaught, then it parked half a block away. Holly checked in, and they were escorted to her suite. Stone liked it better than the ones he was accustomed to.

“Can I use this when you’re not here?”

“Imagine this headline: SECRETARY BARKER’S LOVER STASHED IN STATE DEPARTMENT’S LUXURY LONDON HOTEL SUITE.”

“Gotcha. I’ll get my own suite.”

“Didn’t you buy a London house from Felicity a couple of years ago?”

“Yes. It’s being redecorated now, which is why I didn’t take you there. Next time.”

“That reminds me. I have something for you.” She went to her suitcase and came back with a State Department envelope, sealed with wax, the old-fashioned way.

“What’s this?” Stone asked.

“I asked our ethics review board at State to consider the matter of the house I’ve been living in for the past two years, the one you gave us. They have determined that the department using such a residence for a secretary while she is fucking the gifter is ‘ethically questionable,’ as they so delicately put it, so they’re giving it back to you. The documents are in the envelope.”

Stone scanned them. “These make it seem as though the transaction never took place. Okay. So you’re moving out?”

“Certainly not. I’m very comfortable there. Apparently there’s no ethical problem if I’m fucking the owner of the house I live in.”

“I find that baffling.”

“The federal bureaucracy at its most discerning. There’s a property tax bill in there, too, overdue. The department, in its confusion, never paid them.”

“Swell, I’ll fax it to Joan for payment.”

“The good thing about all this is that I found out how really sweet you are, when you proposed such a thing. You did yourself a lot of good there, buster.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him, and one thing led to several others.

Stone called Lance.

“Yes?”

“Scramble.”

“Scrambled.”

“Holly and I drove up to London earlier today, and we were apparently followed by a white Mercedes Sprinter all the way to the hotel. Do you have an opinion on which of the relevant intelligence groups is behind that?”

“Not us,” Lance said. “Could be either of the others — or, perhaps more likely, the State Department.”

“They have people who do that?”

“Of course.”

“Should I do anything about it?”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know, let the air out of their tires?”

“That would be fun, if it’s the Russians, less fun if it’s the Brits, and no fun at all if it’s State. By the way, are you in State’s suite at the Connaught?”

“We are.”

“Are you participating in the making of a sex video for their benefit?”

“Holly says all that is switched off, and she has a detector that confirms it. I watched her wave it around.”

“Nevertheless, you should be careful about what you’re waving around,” Lance said.

“I shouldn’t trust Holly to turn it off?”

“You shouldn’t trust those people in the van to turn it off.”

“That’s if they’re from State.”

“Behave as if they are, and you won’t have to watch the tape on the Internet. Goodbye.” Lance hung up.

“Holly?” he said.

“Mmmmfh?” she replied into her pillow.

“Do you trust your people not to record our activities here?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I saw to it, early on, that they’re scared shitless of me.”

“Oh, good.”