Hot Pursuit

54

The following morning Stone showered and dressed, then packed his bag; Pat was already packed, he noted. He walked into the sitting room for breakfast to find her at her computer, with a hotel printer on the desk.

“Morning,” she said. “Sleep well?”

“Pretty well.”

“Are you still worried about Paul Reeves?”

“A little. I wish he’d get it over with.”

“Relax, by noon you’ll be on your way to Reykjavik.” She handed him a sheaf of papers. “Your weather forecast and your flight plan, already filed for noon local. A sunny day, all the way to Goose Bay. I recommend you go all the way today — it’ll be worse tomorrow.”

Stone looked at the flight plans. “Seven hours in the air: I can do that.”

“There’s a decent hotel at Goose Bay. I’ll book you in.”

The phone rang, and Stone picked it up. “It’s for you,” he said, handing it to Pat.

“Hello? Hi there, how’s it going? That’s really good news — it’s a good-weather day. We’ll be at Coventry between ten and eleven. I’ll file for twelve. See you then.” She hung up. “Good tidings: my client’s CJ4 is ready and flight-tested. He’s meeting me at Coventry.”

“Good for you.”

“We’ll be in Wichita tonight. I’ll fly back to New York tomorrow.”

“You’d better come to my house — we don’t know what’s going on at your place.”

“You talked me into it.”

Dino and Viv joined them, and breakfast arrived.

The bellman came for their luggage. Dino pointed at two pieces. “Those two go into the second car. My wife is going back to London. The rest go in our Jaguar.”

They put Viv into her car and said goodbye, then they loaded their luggage and drove away from Cliveden a little after ten. The weather was superb: warm and sunny with a nice breeze. He chose BBC Three on the radio, and the excellent sound system filled the car with soft classical music.

“I have a feeling we’re going to see Reeves at the airport,” Stone said.

“So what? At the very worst, you’ll get a chance to punch him in the nose. I wouldn’t try that with Kevin, though, if he’s there.”

“If he’s there, we’ll call the police,” Stone said. “Dino, you’re in charge of bringing the bobbies down on Kevin Keyes, if he’s at the airport.”

“I can do that,” Dino said.

They arrived at the airport and were buzzed through the security gate. The CJ4 had just landed and was taxiing in; Stone’s M2 was just being rolled out of the hangar.

Stone pulled up to his airplane, admiring her once again, and they loaded their luggage while Pat rolled her bag across the ramp toward the CJ4, which had just parked.

A lineman walked up to Stone. “We fueled her yesterday — topped off as you requested.”

“Thanks,” Stone said. “Is that Mustang still here?”

“No, Mr. Reeves took off half an hour ago.”

“Was he alone?”

“His pilot was with him.”

“Stone,” Pat called out, “will you put the car in the parking lot and leave the keys with the desk inside? Somebody will pick it up.”

“Sure, I’ve got to pay for my fuel and hangar, anyway.”

“Anything I can do?” Dino asked.

“Yeah, when I get back, you can turn on the master switch — that’s the red one on the left-hand side — and the landing light — that’s on the right side. I’ll need to check them as part of my pre-flight inspection.”

“Got it.”

Stone drove the car out, left it in the parking lot, then went inside and handed over the keys and paid his bill. While he was doing that the lineman came inside. “Have we got any string?” he asked.

“Sure,” his colleague replied, “there’s some on the shelf behind the desk.” The lineman got the string and went back outside.

Stone signed the bill and put it in his pocket, then started back to the airplane. Dino was standing halfway between the building and the airplane, and the landing light was not yet turned on. The luggage had been removed from the airplane and was piled next to him. As he got nearer to Dino, he noticed that the ball of string the lineman had asked for was at his feet, and that he was holding the string, which led into the cockpit.

“What are you doing?” Stone asked.

Dino handed him a piece of green-jacketed copper wire about three inches long. “Do you recognize that?” he asked.

“No, where’d you get it?”

“It was on the carpet at the top of the airstair, just inside the door.”

“And that caused you to unload the airplane?”

“Call me crazy,” Dino said. “We’ll see.” He tugged hard on the string, and the airplane’s landing light came on.

“I don’t get—” Stone started to say. Then the front end of the airplane exploded. Stone and Dino dove behind the piled luggage, and small pieces of airplane rained down around them. When they looked up again, the cockpit and everything ahead of it had disappeared. The nose gear, amazingly, was still intact.

Then, slowly, the airplane sat down on her tail, making a crunching noise.

“Holy shit!” Stone said, getting to his feet.

Across the ramp, Pat and her client were cowering next to the CJ4. “Are you two all right?” she shouted.

“Fine,” Stone yelled back. “My airplane isn’t so good, though.” He turned to Dino. “What did you do?”

Dino looked sheepish. “The wire made me suspicious, so I tied some string to the master switch and rigged it so that I could turn it on from here. I guess I didn’t really believe that there was a bomb, and I didn’t want to call the bomb squad.”

“Well, I congratulate you on still being alive — and on saving our luggage, too.”

“I’m sorry about the airplane,” Dino said.

“That’s what insurance is for,” Stone replied, and got out his cell phone. “I’d better call them now. You can deal with the cops.”

“I think I’ll call Sir Martin Beveridge,” he said. “It’s better to deal with these things from the top down.”

The police were there in minutes with a chief inspector in charge, and a van full of men and equipment; they were soon crawling over Stone’s M2 like ants.

Stone was about to call his travel agent to book himself and Dino on a flight to New York, when Pat came over. “Listen,” she said, “I’ve talked with my client, and if you like, you and Dino can fly back with us.”

“What a great idea!” Stone said. “Saves us a trip to Heathrow and a lot of hassle.”

“We’ve got some very rare favorable winds today, so we’ll fly to Presque Isle, Maine, and clear customs there. Do you think you can get a charter to meet you and take you to Teterboro?”

“We can do that,” Stone replied. “Where’s Presque Isle?”

“Just south of the Canadian border. We can clear customs there much faster than Bangor, where we’d have to mix with commercial passengers.”

“Good to know.”

Pat pulled him aside, looking embarrassed. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“You’re still my attorney, right?”

“Correct.”

“I didn’t tell you the whole reason why Paul and Kevin have behaved the way they have, but this business with your airplane changes things.”

“Go on.”

“In the beginning, when they were just trying to frighten me, it was because I know a lot more about Paul’s business and his relationship with Kevin than I’ve told you.”

“Tell me now, then.”

“I was a part of what they were doing. I flew Paul to various meetings with briefcases full of money, and I knew what it was for. I wasn’t exactly a partner, but I was an accomplice.”

“I see.”

“When Kevin fired those shots at us on Dartmoor, he wasn’t warning you, he was warning me, because he thought I might tell you about them. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to testify against them.”

“And now?”

“I still don’t want to testify against them, but if you advise me to, I will. The bomb on your airplane was a convincer.”

“I understand, and I’ll keep you as much out of it as I can. The New York DA will be more interested in the murders than in their past.”

They rejoined Dino, and the chief inspector approached. “Commissioner,” he said to Dino, “my men tell me it was something like half a pound of plastique, wired to the master switch. Very simple, really.”

Dino thanked him. “Do you need us for anything else?”

“No, we’ve talked to everybody. Mr. Barrington, what do you want done with your airplane?”

“My insurance agent will be in touch with you about that,” Stone replied. “He’s in California and not open yet, but I’ve left a message for him.”

The captain gave him a card. “We’ve checked, and this Mr. Reeves in the Mustang didn’t head for Reykjavik, as you said he might. He filed for Cork. Nothing beyond that. We’re still checking.”

“I hope you catch up with him,” Stone said.

“Mind you, we’ve nothing to connect him to your airplane, except your suspicions. At least, not yet.”

“I understand. Thank you for your help, Captain. We’ll be off now.” He shook the man’s hand, and he and Dino carried their luggage over to the CJ4 and stowed it. Five minutes later, Pat was taxiing the airplane to the runway, with her client in the right cockpit seat and Stone and Dino buckled into passenger seats.

They landed at Shannon, and Stone used the refueling stop to call his insurance agent again. “Larry?”

“Yes, Stone, I got your message. Have you had a problem?”

“You’re not going to believe it, Larry.”