Stealth

by Stuart Woods

  “Certain members of the government find us useful for that purpose, at least on this occasion. What would you do in my position, Lance?”

  “My service would regurgitate that man into the lap of whoever sent him to me.”

  “We British are less direct,” Felicity said, “especially when dealing at the ministerial level.”

  “Do you suspect the foreign minister? Specifically, I mean, not as part of a group.”

  “I would not be shocked to find his fingerprints on the transfer document.”

  “Put another way: Do you think the FM has something to fear from his freshly minted brigadier?”

  “The FM has been married to the same woman for more than thirty years, and during that time, has bestirred himself to sire a single son and heir, now twenty-eight, a chinless wonder who is employed in the nether ranks of his ministry, as a kind of greeter and handler of visiting dignitaries from beyond Calais.”

  “And what has been scribbled in the margins of your file on the FM over the years?”

  “Let me put it this way,” Felicity said. “There have been no rumors of women in his life.”

  “I see.”

  “I expect you do, Lance.”

  Lance sipped his port and nibbled at his cheese. “Is there a member of his staff who has outlasted all the others over time?”

  Felicity thought about it. “There is,” she replied. “One Sir Ellery Bascombe, a baronet, who was in the FM’s class at Eton—and who has personally attended him ever since the fourth form. I’ve heard them referred to, once or twice, as ‘the old married couple.’”

  “And does Sir Ellery have any naval connections?”

  “After Eton, the young man was not able to find a place at a suitable university, so the family sent him off to Dartmouth, where he was a classmate of Timothy Barnes—and Roger Fife-Simpson. He graduated, after a fashion, but was not commissioned, so the FM, then a party functionary, took him in. He has been a body man to his mentor, now the FM, in one form or another, since that time.”

  “Does he travel with the FM?”

  “Nearly always.”

  “Ah,” Lance said. “Perhaps you have found your way to the heart—or the jugular—of the foreign minister.”

  26

  Stone was enjoying an upward view of Rose while on his back in bed, when her mind seemed to wander.

  “Why, do you think,” she asked, in the midst of regular movements, “that Lance Cabot would speak as he did about the brigadier in our presence?”

  “Yours and mine?” he asked.

  “Yes. I can well understand why he would make those remarks to Felicity in private, but why also to you and me?” She stopped moving.

  “Pardon me,” Stone said, “but may we delay the discussion of Lance’s motives, which are always obscure, for a few minutes?” He gave her a little thrust to bring her mind back to the business at hand.

  “Of course,” she said, responding to his action. She concentrated her mind until they had both reached the peak of their desire and then descended rapidly.

  “Now,” she said, tucking her head into his shoulder, “where were we?”

  “Lance’s motives,” Stone replied, still panting.

  “Which are always obscure?”

  “Always. I think it’s the nature of his work that causes him not to want anyone to know all of what he is thinking at any given moment.”

  “What do you think he was thinking?” she asked.

  “First,” Stone said, “I think he wanted to give Felicity the ammunition she might need to deal with the brigadier.”

  “Obviously. And beyond that?”

  “Beyond that is the no-man’s-land of Lance’s consciousness.”

  “I think Lance knows the brigadier much better than he has admitted to us,” she said.

  “That’s an interesting observation,” Stone admitted.

  “After all,” Rose said, “he did offer to dismember the man.”

  “I think that was most probably metaphorical.”

  “Do you think Lance incapable of cutting someone into pieces?”

  “Personally? Probably not. I do think him capable of ordering someone else to do it, though in the subtlest sort of way.”

  “So do I,” Rose replied.

  “On such short acquaintance?”

  “I’m rather good at making accurate assumptions about people on short acquaintance,” she said. “You, for instance.”

  “How so?”

  “I learned a good deal about you from the way you handled Fife-Simpson while flat on your back in a hospital bed.”

  “I confess, I don’t like being pushed around.”

  “Hardly anyone does, but you engaged him in a way he was unaccustomed to, and set him back on his heels. That requires character. But you didn’t engage him physically.”

  “Well, I thought I had a broken foot,” Stone said.

  Rose laughed. “Discretion is a part of character, too, as well as valor.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Tell me, have you often engaged in physicality?”

  “Didn’t we just do that?”

  “I was referring to fighting.”

  “I was a police officer for many years, and as such, I had to be ready to meet physical resistance. People don’t like being handcuffed and stuffed in the back of a police car, and they often resist.”

  “How did you handle that?”

  “As quickly as possible. I learned early on that, in a fight, the first blow is very important. Properly struck, it discourages further argument.”

  “That’s good advice,” she said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Are you planning to fight someone?”

  “Not at the moment, but you never know.”

  “I’ll tread carefully around you, then.”

  “Not too carefully, please.”

  And a moment later, they were back at it.

  * * *

  —

  Lance finished a late lunch, got out his cell phone, tapped in the code to scramble the signal, and called CIA headquarters.

  “Meg Tillman,” a husky voice said.

  “Is our guest still with us?”

  “He is, and bored rigid, I should think. He plans to drive back to D.C. at midday.”

  “Before he departs, take him down to Camp Peary, equip him with protective gear and a knife of his choice, and introduce him to Wu. When he’s done there, send him on his way with a hearty handshake and a slap on the back.”

  “Understood,” she replied. “I think I speak for all the people he’s met when I say, ‘good riddance.’”

  Lance laughed, then hung up.

  * * *

  —

  Meg put away her phone and went to find the brigadier, who was in the break room, finishing a cup of tea. “Do you have time for one more visit?” she asked.

  “To where?”

  “Our training facility. The director thought you might enjoy meeting someone there.”

  Fife-Simpson sighed, put down his teacup, and followed her from the building. They crossed a hundred yards of well-kept lawn and entered another building.

  “We’ve heard that you prefer the knife as a weapon,” Meg said, “and we thought our approach to attack and defense might interest you.”

  “Of course,” Fife-Simpson replied.

  She took him into an equipment room and supplied him with a thick canvas jumpsuit and a protective upper-body garment that, when zipped up, gave him a shield from his chin to his crotch, and the sleeves of which stopped below his knuckle. “Suit up. You can put your things in a locker, there. I’ll be waiting through that door.” She pointed.

  * * *

  —

  Fife-Simpson liked the garment he was donn
ing; he thought it might soothe the fears of some of his students at Station Two. He opened the door and stepped into a room of about twelve by eighteen feet, with a thickly padded floor and walls, up to about six feet. Meg was sitting on a bench at his right, and she stood up and beckoned him to a cabinet, opening the doors to reveal a couple dozen knives and other hand weapons.

  “Please select something,” she said.

  Fife-Simpson chose an ordinary-looking, but very sharp, field knife. “This, I should think,” he said.

  “Good,” Meg replied. “Now, may I introduce you to Mr. Wu?”

  Fife-Simpson turned and found an Asian man standing in the center of the room, dressed in gym shorts and nothing else. He appeared to be unarmed, and the brigadier had not heard him enter. The man beckoned, then pointed at a spot on the padded floor, about six feet in front of him.

  Fife-Simpson walked out onto the floor and stopped.

  Wu stood, feet slightly apart, empty hands at his sides. He had thick, cropped black hair and bland features. He beckoned with both hands. “Attack me, please,” he said.

  Fife-Simpson shook his head and said, “You are unarmed. I have you at a disadvantage.”

  “Perhaps not,” Wu replied. “Attack me, please,” he repeated.

  Fife-Simpson felt a trickle of fear run down his bowels, but he shook it off, assumed a fighting stance, and circled to his left.

  Wu turned with him, but made no other movement.

  Fife-Simpson feinted a couple of times, but Wu had no reaction. Oh, what the hell, Fife-Simpson thought to himself, and lunged at the man’s face. He was very quick, but Wu was quicker. He caught the brigadier’s wrist, and Fife-Simpson found himself on his belly, his own knife blade pressed against his throat. What the hell was that? he asked himself.

  Wu took the knife away and stood up, beckoning Fife-Simpson to do the same. He tossed the knife to the brigadier, who caught it blade first, cutting his finger.

  “Again,” Wu said, beckoning.

  Fife-Simpson was angry and embarrassed now and did not hold back. He feinted, and tossed the knife from one hand to the other, a maneuver that usually worried his opponents.

  Wu simply caught the knife in midair and tossed it back to his attacker, who was struck in the chest by the blade.

  Fife-Simpson was grateful for the protective gear now, because without it he would have had a knife blade in his heart. Wu was still beckoning with both hands.

  The brigadier recovered the knife and, with no hesitation, flung himself feet first into a leg tackle, bringing Wu to his knees, but no further. There was the flash of a hand and Fife-Simspon found himself flat on his back, with the knife blade laid against his cheek, the tip a quarter-inch from his eye.

  Wu looked at Meg questioningly. She gave him a slight nod.

  Fife-Simpson was yanked to his feet, and the knife was tossed to him again.

  “Once more,” Wu said softly.

  Fife-Simpson was humiliated and furious now. He drew himself into a coil—his left arm before him, bent at the elbow, fist clenched—and flung himself at Wu, slashing back and forth, a maneuver designed to hit his opponent anywhere, and with enough force to mark his body and bring blood.

  Fife-Simpson found himself flying through the air. He struck the padded wall with more force than he had expended, then collapsed in a heap. He felt a warm trickle down one side of his nose, which found his lips and tasted a little salty.

  “Enough!” Meg called out.

  Fife-Simpson staggered to his feet, blinded in one eye by blood.

  “Over here,” Meg said.

  Fife-Simpson staggered across the matted floor to where she stood. A young man stood beside her, holding what appeared to be a fishing tackle case.

  She stripped the protective clothing off him. “Lie down on the bench, face up,” Meg said.

  Fife-Simpson followed her every instruction instantly, and the young man spent several minutes suturing and then bandaging his forehead and finger.

  A half hour later, Fife-Simpson was driving his car through the gate of Camp Peary and onto the public road, following instructions to the motorway back to Washington, wondering what the hell had happened to him, and why.

  27

  Over breakfast the next morning, Lance told Stone and Rose about Fife-Simpson’s experience at the CIA and Camp Peary.

  “Was he badly hurt?” Rose asked.

  “His injuries were almost entirely to his ego,” Lance replied. “I thought a little humility might help him in his instruction of trainees at Station Two.”

  “I was one of them,” Stone said, “and I hope you’re right.”

  “Who is this Wu fellow?” Rose asked.

  “Probably the best street fighter in the world,” Lance replied, “with or without weapons. I once temporarily gave that title to another of our instructors, but Wu brought a quick end to his supremacy.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “In the Army, where we find a lot of our operational people,” Lance said. “During basic training he was housed in a barrack full of racist recruits who challenged him to fights. He worked his way through them in a matter of days. His drill sergeant, who was afraid of him, called an intelligence officer to the base. After an interview, we whisked him away to Camp Peary, and we’ve never let him go.”

  “So, Fife-Simpson is not the fighter he tells everybody he is?” Stone asked.

  “No, but he is hardly helpless,” Lance said. “He is probably the equal of our average instructor at Camp Peary, and if you should ever be provoked into a fight with him, my advice would be to shoot him in the head immediately.”

  “I think I’ll start by asking Felicity not to bring him to dinner again,” Stone said.

  * * *

  —

  Felicity was halfway through her morning at work when her secretary announced Brigadier Fife-Simpson.

  “Ah, Roger, back from your travels? Is that a bandage on your forehead?” She waved him to a chair.

  “Nothing serious,” he said, “though it could have been.”

  “Could this be the result of an encounter with a person called Wu?” she asked.

  “It was,” he replied, “and I am not grateful to you for putting me in that position. I could have been badly hurt.”

  “Roger,” she said reprovingly, “it is my information that you were armed with a knife, while Wu had only his bare hands to defend himself. And it is my recollection that, when training recruits at Station Two, you gave them actual knives for them to practice killing each other.”

  “I did that for their own good,” he said primly.

  “Then perhaps the people at Camp Peary thought you needed an attitude adjustment,” she replied.

  “I, indeed?” He sniffed. “I was trundled about their headquarters like a foreign tourist, then sent down to their training establishment and humiliated.”

  “Well, you were a foreign tourist, but I suppose I must apologize for them,” Felicity said, mock-soothingly.

  “I think you and Lance Cabot hatched this plot between you,” he said. “I just want you to know it didn’t work.”

  “May I remind you,” Felicity said, “that I am your superior at this service?”

  “And I am a brigadier general of the Royal Marines,” he nearly shouted.

  “Perhaps you are not aware,” Felicity said coldly, “that my position here carries the military rank of full admiral?”

  “I apologize,” Fife-Simpson sputtered.

  “As, indeed, you should. I expect you are also unaware that your presence in my service was pressed on me from above.”

  He reddened. “Perhaps it was believed that my presence here might lend some organization and weight to this service.”

  “We are quite well organized, I assure you, and we bear such sufficient weight that yo
u might suddenly find yourself training recruits from south of Calais in how to be British officers and gentlemen. Would you enjoy that?”

  “I would not,” he muttered.

  “Then perhaps you could suggest a more agreeable use for your presence here?”

  Fife-Simpson was suddenly at a loss for words.

  “Then go back to your office, think it over, and write me a memo on the subject of how you might be more important to our purposes,” she said. “Good day.”

  Fife-Simpson got up and left the room, mustering as much dignity as he could manage.

  28

  Later the same day, Dame Felicity presented herself at the Foreign Office and was announced to the minister. She was made to wait a half hour before being admitted to the inner sanctum, which was not alarming but customary. On entering she found the minister at his desk, reading and signing documents, ignoring her. She took a seat.

  “I don’t recall asking you to sit,” Sir Oswald said, still not looking at her.

  “I don’t recall being asked to stand,” Felicity replied tartly.

  Now he looked up at her and put down his fountain pen. “I have, less than an hour ago, received a letter of resignation from your service of Brigadier Roger Fife-Simpson.”

  “Well, the proper thing to have done would be for him to send it to me, then allow me to pass it up to you, but my relief is such that I will overlook the transgression.”

  “He says you tried to have him killed,” the foreign minister said.

  “Foreign minister,” Felicity said icily, “if I had tried to have him killed he would now be in a box in the churchyard at the Royal Naval College, after having been accorded full military honors.”

  “I did not bring you here to joke,” he said.

  “What made you think I was joking?” she asked.

  Sir Oswald slammed his pen down on his desk. “Goddammit, Felicity, I will not tolerate insubordination from you!”

  “Then sack me!” Felicity riposted at a similar volume. “Or leave me to stock my service with the best people, not castoff blackmailers like that horrible little man! Those are your choices, do with them as you will!”