Stealth

59

As Stone got to his feet, the women were coming out of Rose’s dressing room, both naked and holding hands.

“Ladies,” Stone said. “Please do as I ask right now. Gather your clothes and walk down the hall to the last guest room and get dressed, then stay there until I come for you.”

“What on earth...” Rose said.

“Do it now, please.”

Felicity got it. “Rose, let’s go.” She led Rose back into the dressing room, and they emerged, each carrying her clothes, and left the room.

Stone got out his iPhone and called the local police. “Chief Inspector Holmes,” he said.

“I’m sorry, sir,” a woman replied, “but the chief inspector has gone for the day.”

“This is an extreme emergency,” Stone said. “Connect me to him immediately.”

“Your name, sir?”

“Barrington.”

“One moment.”

Roger Fife-Simpson stood in a patch of woods a quarter mile from Windward Hall. He stripped the last of the British Gas logo from the van, wadded it up, and struck a match to it. Then he dropped it where the flames wouldn’t spread. He took off his cap and uniform, revealing a black sweater and trousers underneath, and added the work clothes to the flames, poking at them with a stick until they were burning readily. He checked the contents of his canvas bag and came up with a silenced pistol given to him by Wilfred, identical to the firearm he had been issued at MI-6, and tucked it into his belt. Then he dug out the throwaway cell phone. He started to dial a number, but decided he wanted to see the effect of his work, so he left the van, crossed the road, and climbed over a stone wall. From where he landed, he had a fine view of the front of the house. He redialed the number.

Stone was waiting impatiently, then finally: “This is Chief Inspector Holmes.”

“Chief Inspector, this is Stone Barrington. I’ve found what appears to be a bomb under my bed, and I need your bomb squad at once.”

“Certainly,” Holmes replied. “I’ll see to it.”

“Oh, and please send someone who knows about poisons.”

“You’re having quite an evening, aren’t you?” Holmes asked, then hung up.

Stone suddenly asked himself a question. Why was he standing in his bedroom, four feet from a probable bomb? He grabbed the shotgun and left, closing the door behind him. Then he remembered something someone, perhaps Holly, had told him about the Agency iPhone. He went to the home page and looked at the icons, and then he saw it. Utilities, it was called. He touched it and found himself looking at a list. One item read: Create a Dead Zone.

He selected that item and watched as the list disappeared, and the very annoying little circle appeared, spinning. While it spun he reasoned that the bomb would likely not be on a timer, since no one knew what time he would go to bed; more likely, it would be detonated by a cell phone carried by the man who had planted it there.

The circle stopped spinning, and a message appeared:

Stone looked down the hall at his bedroom door; that was an obstacle. He ran for it.

Roger pressed the Send button and waited, watching the house.

Stone flung open the door and stopped. Nothing was happening. He went to his dressing room and came back with a large furled umbrella, then lay down next to the bed, turned on his flashlight, and reached out with the handle of the umbrella. After a few attempts, he had pulled the two volumes close enough to reach, and he dragged them from under the bed.

Roger was wondering why nothing had happened, when he heard the sounds of a police car approaching. He vaulted over the wall, dropping the cell phone but continuing to run toward the van. He was in the front seat when a police car and a large van turned into the driveway of Windward Hall. When they had passed, he started his van, turned onto the road, and drove back toward Beaulieu. Then he stopped. Why had the bomb not detonated? He made a U-turn, drove back into his sheltered parking spot, and got out. He would have to find the cell phone he had dropped.

Stone knelt beside the two beautifully bound volumes, then looked hard for any protrusion, even a thread, showing. Nothing there. He lifted the cover of the top volume and found only handsome end papers; then he began, a few pages at a time, looking through the book. A third of the way through, he found himself looking at an inch-deep compartment that had been cut through the pages. Inside it were a block of something that looked like modeling clay and a flip-phone, the display of which was lighted.

Why, he asked himself, had the phone not rung? His dead zone must be effective, but apparently, if he had taken a second or two longer to activate it, the worst might have happened.

There was a detonator plugged into the explosive matter, and he removed that; then he unplugged the cell phone from its connection to the detonator. Stone was no expert on bombs, but he reckoned he had rendered this one harmless. Then he remembered the second volume.

Outside, Roger had found the cell phone. He had a second, backup number to call, and he punched in the number, which he had memorized.

As Stone reached for the second volume, an incredibly bright light blinded him.

“Get out of the way!” a man’s voice shouted, and Stone was pushed roughly aside.

“I disconnected volume one,” Stone said, blinking rapidly, trying to see something, anything. “I didn’t have time to get to volume two.” He sat up and he could make out, blurrily, the shape of a uniformed policeman bending over the book.

“Got it,” the man said, setting down his large flashlight, then half a second later the display in his hand lighted up. “Jesus God,” he muttered to himself. “Why didn’t it ring?”

“Because,” Stone said, “we’re in a dead zone, courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.” He got out his cell phone, tapped it, and showed it to the policeman.

“I want one of those,” the man said.