6 Stone Barrington Novels (187 page)

STONE CHECKED OUT
the bellman through the peephole, then let him enter and take the luggage. He called the garage and asked them to have his car ready, then instructed the bellman to precede them and load the luggage. They waited five minutes, then, with Stone going first, his hand under his jacket on his gun, made their way down the hall and into the elevator.

Stone asked Arrington to remain on the elevator while he checked out the lobby, then he escorted her quickly to the garage, where the car was waiting, its motor running. He tipped everybody, then got moving. He drove around the block twice to be sure he was not being followed, then crossed the park at Seventy-second Street, made his way to the West Side Highway, then north to the Saw Mill River Parkway.

“How long have you had this car?” Arrington asked. It was the first time she had spoken.

“Three years, I guess.”

“It seems very powerful.”

“It is; it's the E55 model, with the AMG-tuned engine, the fastest Mercedes made. And it has the advantage of being armored.”

“
Armored?
Did you anticipate events?”

“No, it was serendipitous. I arrived at the dealership as they were wheeling it in. It had been ordered by an Italian-American gentleman,
who felt he had enemies, but the car arrived exactly one day too late. His widow asked the dealer to resell it, and I couldn't resist.”

“How armored?”

“It'll stop small-arms fire.”

“That's comforting to know, in the circumstances.” Then she went quiet again.

Stone took the Saw Mill all the way to I-684, then to I-84 and thence to exit 16. A left turn from the ramp took them to Oxford airport in two minutes. He checked his watch. They had been on the road for an hour and forty-five minutes. “We'll have a wait,” he said.

They made themselves comfortable in the little terminal, and an hour and a half later, the GIV, with the trademark Roman centurion on its tail, touched down and taxied to the terminal. The engines died, and the door opened. The first person out was a small boy in a blue overcoat, carrying a small suitcase in one hand and a Gameboy in the other.

As Peter rushed into his mother's arms, Stone was struck by his appearance—dark hair, handsome face—and it suddenly occurred to him that Peter Calder, ostensibly the son of Vance Calder, bore an uncanny resemblance to Malon Barrington, Stone's father.

“Peter,” Arrington said, “I want you to meet a very good friend of mine. This is Stone Barrington.”

Peter extended his hand and said gravely, “How do you do, Mr. Barrington?”

“Hello, Peter,” Stone said, taking the boy's tiny hand, “and please call me Stone.”

“Thank you, sir,” Peter replied.

Arrington then introduced Ilsa, the knockout Swedish nanny, and a moment later, they were headed north toward Washington, Connecticut.

Peter took in the bare trees and patchy snow. “It's colder here than Virginia,” he said.

“I hope you packed warm clothes,” Arrington said to Ilsa.

“Yes, ma'am,” Ilsa replied.

THEY ENTERED
the village from the south, drove past the Mayflower Inn and turned left at the Congregational church.

“This is Washington Green,” Stone explained, “and my house was once the gatehouse for the big place next door, called the Rocks.”

“Then you should call your house the Pebbles,” Peter said.

“The Pebbles it is, from this day forward,” Stone replied, turning into the short driveway.

“Oh, this is charming, Stone,” Arrington said. “Look at the little turret, Peter.”

But Peter was already out of the car, peering through the windows.

Stone got the door open and turned up the thermostat. “Keep your coats on for a few minutes, until it warms up.” He took Arrington aside. “There are only two bedrooms.”

“Well,” she said, “it won't be the first time we've shared, will it?”

Stone and the nanny got the bags upstairs and distributed, and by the time he got back downstairs, the furnace was producing heat. “Make yourselves at home,” he said. “I have to make a couple of phone calls.”

He called his office first.

“The Barrington Practice,” Joan said.

“Hi, it's Stone. I'm at the Connecticut house, and I expect to be here for a few days.”

“Okay, I have some things I can work on.”

“No, I want you to take a few days off, too. Put an announcement on the answering machine saying that I'm away but that I'll pick up my messages. You can check it a couple of times a day and call me about anything important.”

“Okay, boss.”

“I'll call you when it's time to come back to work.”

“Okay, I'll just do a few things this morning, then go home.”

“Joan, I want you to lock up and go home right now, and I don't want you to come back, even for a minute, until I call you.”

“Uh, oh,” she said. “What's up?”

“A bad guy is looking for me, and I don't want him to find either of us.”

“I'm out of here,” she said. “ 'Bye.”

Stone called Dino.

“Bacchetti.”

“Hi, it's Stone.”

“What was that little dance you and Lance were doing last night, and why was there a bullet hole in your pants?”

“Lance picked up Billy Bob, but he managed to escape. It appears that killing me is high on his to-do list.”

“Billy Bob's or Lance's?”

“Billy Bob's. Lance was just trying to get me to come with him.”

“I guess it worked.”

“I guess it did. But listen, Billy Bob might be mad at you, too.”

“Why?”

“He doesn't seem to need a reason, but I want you to watch your back for a few days.”

“I'll do that.”

“Maybe even assign a man to watch it for you.”

“You think Billy Bob's that dangerous?”

“Last night, he killed two of Lance's best people with a knife.”

“In my precinct?”

“It's been dealt with; it won't come to your attention.”

“Good.”

“I'm at the Connecticut house, but don't tell anybody, not even Elaine. You can reach me here if anything happens.”

“Okay, take care of yourself. Is Arrington pissed off at you again?”

“No, she and Peter are here with me.”

“How cozy.”

“Oh, shut up, and as I say, watch your back.”

“And you watch your ass.”

Stone hung up and went into the living room, which was warm now. Peter was expertly hooking up his game machine to the television.

“You can do that with the sound off,” Arrington said.

“Don't worry, Mom, I brought my earphones.”

Stone sat and watched, fascinated, while the little boy played his computer games.

LATER THAT NIGHT,
when Peter and Ilsa were asleep, Stone showered, then slipped into bed with Arrington. She was not wearing a nightgown. He touched her shoulder. “You're very warm.”

“Come closer, and I'll warm you, too.”

They came together as if they had never been apart.

FOR THREE DAYS,
they lived quietly, dining at the Mayflower Inn or cooking at home. They drove the country roads, gazing at the Connecticut winter. It snowed. Peter and Stone made a snowman in the front yard.

Late in the afternoon of the third day, while Arrington and Peter were napping and Ilsa was helping to get dinner started, Stone drove down the hill toward Washington Depot, the little business district, to get some wine for dinner. His cell phone vibrated, and he pulled into the empty parking lot of the Episcopal church, remembering that this was a place where cell-phone reception was possible.

“Hello?”

“It's Lance.”

“Hello, Lance.”

“Where are you?”

“Out of town.”

“Where out of town?”

“I don't think I should say on the phone.”

“I've been trying to call you.”

“Cell-phone reception is dicey here.”

“Don't you ever check your voice mail?”

“Not since I left the city. What's up?”

“We identified Billy Bob from a single thumbprint found in the Hummer.”

“And?”

“It's not good news.”

“Tell me.”

“His real name is Jack Jeff Kight.”

“You mean, Knight?”

“Without the
n.
Kight.”

“So, who is Jack Jeff Kight?”

“Born in Plainview, Texas, thirty-nine years ago, son of a used-car dealer and a waitress mother. Attended the local schools, barely got out of high school. Juvenile delinquent, of a sort—joyriding in other people's cars, fights at the local roadhouses, that sort of thing. Got a local girl pregnant, stole some money to buy her an abortion in Juarez, got caught. He was given a choice—two years in jail or three years in the military. He picked the Marines.”

“Sounds pretty ordinary.”

“He wasn't. He tested very bright in the Corps. Very physical, breezed through basic at Parris Island, breezed through advanced infantry training. He qualified for the Navy Seals and was about to start training, when an Agency recruiter came across him.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Well, yes. He was lifted from the Corps fifteen years ago and sent to Camp Peary.”

“The Farm.”

“Yes. He did extraordinarily well there, learned many skills, seemed made for covert work, the wet kind. Then he killed another trainee. With his hands.”

“So why isn't he at your little establishment in Leavenworth?”

“Claimed it was self-defense; a couple of witnesses backed him up. Another witness claimed he provoked the other guy, but he got through the investigation and was returned to training. Less than a
month later, he got into a fight with an instructor and got his ass kicked, but when the instructor was walking away, Jack Jeff picked up a board and fractured the man's skull. This time, he got the boot. The Corps didn't want him back, so a general discharge was arranged, and Jack Jeff vanished into the hinterland. Five weeks later the instructor whose head he had broken had a seizure, collapsed and died. Apparently, too much time had elapsed between the original injury and the death to prove murder, and anyway, our boy was gone. The Agency never heard of him again, until now.”

“What were some of those skills he picked up at the Farm?”

“Hand-to-hand combat, explosives, weapons, communications, document forgery, the opening of locks and safes, the bypassing of alarms of all sorts and how to create false identities and cover his tracks. Among others. He was there for nine months.”

“Everything a boy needs to know to carve out a criminal career for himself.”

“Everything but experience. He got that over the next decade and a half, doing the con jobs that we know about and, probably, a lot that we haven't discovered, yet. Apparently, he didn't kill anybody until the hooker at your house, but we can't be sure of that. Are you at your place in a nearby state? I'll send some people up to watch you.”

“Don't bother; we're doing just fine.”

“You took Arrington with you? What about her child?”

“Him, too. Look, Lance, we're okay. There's no way Billy Bob could know about this place.”

“How about the little piece about your house in
Architectural Digest
two years ago?”

Stone felt ill. “How would he run across that?”

“How'd you find out about Billy Bob's past?”

“Google. That's a long shot.”

“It's how I found you.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Exactly. You must learn that working for us entitles you to certain protections.”

“I suppose you want to put us in the Agency's Protect Your Consultant's Ass program and ship us off to Omaha, or someplace?”

“Tell the truth, I'd rather send a team up there and hope Jack Jeff shows up.”

“You want to turn us into bait?”

“Bait is alive. Corpses are dead.”

“All right, but can you do it without Arrington noticing?”

“I can do it without
you
noticing.”

“I'd rather notice.”

“If you see a very Irish-looking fellow—thirtyish, red haired, red faced, chunky—he's mine. Name of McGonigle. There'll be others. McGonigle is all you need to notice.”

“All right, when?”

“They're already on their way.”

“Are you going to tell the local cops? You don't want to get them rousted.”

“I've been in touch with them. I trust you are now armed?”

“To the teeth.”

“Don't let Arrington or the boy go anywhere without you. The team won't be as effective, if they have to split up.”

“Oh, there's a nanny, too, Swedish, name of Ilsa.”

“Keep everybody close. If there are errands to be run, send Ilsa. I'll let McGonigle know about her. Oh, there was one other piece of information, goes to the motive of our boy.”

“What's that?”

“You remember a little German man named Mitteldorfer?”

“Oh, Christ, yes.” Stone and Dino had sent him to prison, and, once out, he'd made repeated attempts to kill them.

“There's a nexus: Jack Jeff has visited him a number of times in prison, using other names. We've no idea how they first made
contact, but apparently, he's annoyed with you at having Mitteldorfer put away a second time.”

“Yeah, he kept trying to kill us. Get some people on Dino, too, will you?” Stone said.

“I'll do that. Talk to you later.”

“Lance?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.” But Lance had already hung up.

Stone drove on to the wine shop, but he hurried. He returned to find the house still quiet. Even Ilsa wasn't making any noise in the kitchen.

He went in there to put the wine in the kitchen rack, and Ilsa was still sitting at the kitchen table, where she had been shelling peas, but now, she had fallen asleep, her head on the table.

Stone put away the wine and went to wake her, then he stopped, confused. She had been shelling peas, not cutting tomatoes. There were no tomatoes for dinner. Still, there was a lot of tomato juice on the kitchen table, and some had spilled onto the floor. He walked slowly around the table and saw where the red came from.

Ilsa's throat had been cleanly, surgically cut.