A Safe House

18

Stone was dismayed. “Who? Where?”

“The people who are looking for you. They’re all over the place.”

“Come in, Ed,” Stone said, pulling him inside and closing the door behind him. “Ed, this is Jenna Jacoby.”

“Hi,” Ed said. “I’ve seen you somewhere.”

“Hi, Ed. I have that kind of face.”

“Don’t change the subject, Ed,” Stone said. “Who are these people and where?”

“How the hell should I know where they are?” Ed demanded. “You’d know that.”

“Once again, where are they?”

“Everywhere. Two of them followed me here. They’re across the road in the bushes.”

“How are they traveling?”

“Bicycles, mostly.”

“Bicycles? There aren’t all that many on the island.”

“You can rent them at the village store.”

“Oh, yeah. Tell me more.”

“What’s to tell? I can’t figure this out for you, Stone.”

“Are they wearing hats?”

“Yeah, most of them.”

“Are the hats Stetsons?”

“Stetsons?”

“Like, cowboy hats.”

“Hell, I don’t know. Two of them were wearing baseball caps.”

“Baseball?”

“Yankees, Red Sox. Like that.”

“No cowboys?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

Stone had a thought. “How old are they?”

“I didn’t ask,” Ed replied.

“Old? Young? In between?”

“Youngish, I guess.”

Stone sighed with relief.

“Why are you relieved?” Ed asked. “I wouldn’t be relieved, if I were you.”

“They’re Lance’s,” Stone replied.

“Lance’s?”

“That’s right. From the Farm. Trainees. I suggested that he put them on warding off Wallace Slade.”

“The guy from Texas? Congressman?”

“Senator.”

Stone’s phone rang. “Yes?”

“It’s Lance. Have you seen any of my trainees?”

“Ed Rawls has. I think he wanted to shoot them.”

“Why would Ed want to do that?”

“Ed doesn’t like lurking. Your people are lurking, and Ed very kindly reported it to me.”

“Is Ed there?”

“Yes.”

“Let me speak to him.”

Stone handed Ed the phone. “Lance, for you.”

Ed took the phone. “Yeah? Hi, Lance. Yes, I saw them lurking. Okay, I won’t shoot them. Bye.” He handed the phone back to Stone.

“Get that all sorted out, Lance?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You might tell their instructor to work on their lurking.”

Lance hung up.

“What do I do if I see more of them?” Ed asked.

“Yell ‘BOO!!!’ ”

“See you at six-thirty.” Rawls left.

Stone got Jenna and himself a drink and sat down. “Sorry about that. Ed is hyper-watchful; they taught him that at the Farm.”

“Which farm?”

“The CIA training farm. Remember, last night I suggested to Lance, in jest, that he should put the trainees onto dealing with Wallace?”

“Oh, yes.”

“He has already done so.”

“And they’re lurking?”

“How did you know that?”

Ed Rawls showed up promptly at six-thirty with a handsome woman named Rena Pierce — Stone guessed her to be in her late fifties. She was introduced to Jenna and the two of them were given drinks.

“Spot any more lurkers?” Jenna asked.

“It’s getting dark, and it’s harder to see the lurkers,” Ed replied. He turned toward Stone. “There’s somebody missing. Where’s Dino?”

“Back at his office, pretending to work,” Stone replied. “He might join us at the weekend.”

The doorbell rang.

“Expecting somebody else?” Ed asked.

“No,” Stone replied.

Ed went and stood beside the door, one hand under his jacket.

“Don’t shoot whoever it is, Ed. After all, it could just be a lurker.”

“Okay.”

Stone opened the door, and Lance walked in. “Evening, all,” he said, shaking hands.

“Lance,” Stone said. “When you called, where were you?”

“On the chopper.”

“Of course.”

“My business was done in New York, and I figured the flight here isn’t any farther than Virginia, so I came in search of lobster.”

“I’ll tell Mary,” Stone said, and he did. They always had lobster on their first night in Maine.

Lance accepted a drink. “Ed, seen any more of my lurkers?”

“It got dark,” Ed replied.

“This is not as crazy as it sounds, Stone,” Lance said.

“How the hell would Slade find us here?”

Lance turned to Jenna. “Jenna, did you call anyone after you got here?”

“I spoke to my sister, in Washington.”

Stone slumped. “I’m sorry, Lance. I forgot to tell her not to use her cell phone.”

“It was only my sister,” Jenna said. “What’s the problem?”

“May I see your cell phone, please?”

Jenna dug it out of her purse and handed it to Stone, who tinkered around with it and gave it back to her.

“If you want to speak to anyone not present, please use the landline,” Stone said. “Cell phones are easy to track.”

“Oh, my God,” Jenna muttered.

“My fault. I should have explained that to you.”

“Do you think Wallace is smart enough to trace me?”

Lance spoke up. “Wallace knows someone who is.”

“Oh.”

“Ed,” Lance said. “Continue to be vigilant about lurkers. If you see any wearing black Stetsons, you can shoot them.”

“Gotcha,” Ed replied.

Aided by their before-dinner drinks and a couple of bottles of a good California chardonnay, the party grew jolly. Rena Pierce turned out to be a good value, and Lance was more cheerful than he usually was.

After dinner, Stone lit a fire, and they gathered around the hearth with brandy and liqueurs.

“Where are all those kids of yours sleeping, Lance?” Stone asked.

“Not my problem; probably on the cold, wet ground.”

“Not to disappoint you, Lance,” Ed said, “but I left my barn open with a note on the door, welcoming them.”

“Is there a toilet?” Lance asked.

“There is, as long as they shit in the woods,” Rawls replied.

“Oh, Ed!” Rena said.

“That’s better than in my barn.”

“I grant you that,” she replied.

“You’re interfering with their training,” Lance said. “Shelter was not part of their assignment, not to mention plumbing.”

“I would have thought that the Agency would have outgrown the Boy Scout stage,” Rawls said. “There are cheap motels everywhere these days. Though not on this island, now that I think of it.”

“I believe they arrived here by boat,” Lance said. “Perhaps it was enough of a boat to offer them shelter and a toilet.”

“If that’s true, then I retract my comments about the Agency,” Rawls said.

“Retraction accepted.” Lance poured himself another cognac.

“I don’t think I would have enjoyed training at the Farm,” Stone said.

“It beats Parris Island,” Rawls said. “And you learn some nifty life skills like safecracking and killing with your thumb.”

“How do you kill with your thumb?” Jenna asked.

“Don’t ask,” Lance said. “You’ll have dreams about it, and we don’t want that, do we?”

“I have dreams — bad ones — about Harley Quince,” Jenna said.

“He will be excised from your dreams at the earliest opportunity,” Lance replied.

“Is that permission to proceed?” Ed asked.

“It is not. Anyway, you don’t need my permission to do anything, Ed. You’re an OAP, now.”

“What’s an OAP?” Rena asked.

“An old-age pensioner,” Ed replied. “I try not to think about that these days. That’s why I like to off somebody now and then. Keeps the mind alive.”

“Not the other guy’s mind,” Stone pointed out.

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

There was a loud whacking sound from the front of the house.

“What was that?” Jenna asked.

Stone threw himself at Jenna, knocking her chair over with her in it. “Hit the deck, everybody!” he shouted, and everybody did. “That,” Stone said, “was the sound of a penetrating object, striking an impenetrable surface.” He reached for the nearest lamp cord and yanked it out of the wall socket. The room went dark.

All the men began to move.