by Stuart Woods
“Do you think these people pose an immediate threat to Peter and Ben?”
“I think they’re capable of anything,” Billy replied, “but I can’t predict what.”
“I think, perhaps, we should get the kids out of the country.”
“I’ve suggested that, but Peter is not in a mood to run from the situation.”
“Maybe what he needs,” Stone said, “is a situation to run to.”
15
Peter finally called after lunch. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, there, kiddo. I was about to call you. How are things in L.A.?”
“I’m in New York, for a screening—so are Ben and Billy and theirs. The studio put us at the Carlyle, so we didn’t trouble you.”
“I got in from England Monday night.”
“What were you doing in England?”
“I was finding you a country estate location for a movie.”
“Well, that’s interesting, I’m working on something I’d like to shoot in a place like that. Where is it?”
“On the Beaulieu River”—Stone spelled it for him—“in the south of England, near the Solent. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ve got a map right here, hang on.” There was a rustling of paper.
“Right next to Southampton Water.”
“Got it, and I see the Solent and the Isle of Wight. Tell me about it.”
“As long as you’re this far east, why don’t you just go over there and look at it? Take a vacation.”
“Hattie would like to hear that word from me.”
“There’s nothing to stop you working while you’re there. If you’re going to write about England, why not write in England?”
“That’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had, Dad. How did you learn about this place?”
“A friend told me about it. If you want to go right after your screening, I’ll see if Mike Freeman has a jet going that way. Strategic Services is always back and forth across the Atlantic.”
“You don’t want to fly us yourself?”
“I just got back. Tell you what, if you’ll stay for a while, I’ll join you in a couple of weeks, after I’ve had time to catch up here.”
“Where should we stay while we’re there? Do you know a good hotel nearby?”
“There’s a very nice house on the property, and you’d be comfortable there. There’s a staff to take care of you.”
“Who owns it?”
“You, eventually.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve bought another house!”
“It’s all right, I sold one, too. Let’s have dinner tomorrow night, and I’ll show you some pictures.”
“Okay. And there’s a screening of Hell’s Bells on Friday night we’d all like you to attend. Ben’s asking Dino and Viv.”
“Wonderful. I’ll check with Mike about getting you across the pond.”
“Where will we go tomorrow night?”
“Do you still like the Four Seasons?”
“Sure I do, I’ve missed it.”
“Eight o’clock there.”
“You’re on.”
“See you then.” They hung up, and Stone called Mike Freeman.
“Welcome home. I hear the new house is beautiful.”
“It certainly is. When will you come to visit?”
“Maybe sooner than you think.”
“Listen, Peter and Ben and their young women want to go over there this weekend. Do you have an airplane headed that way?”
“I expect so. When do they want to go?”
“Saturday or Sunday?”
“I’ll do a little juggling with my people. They’ll have to share the airplane, though. How many of them?”
“Six, and there’s a six-thousand-foot runway on the property with a GPS approach. You can drop them there, and I’ll arrange for customs and immigration to meet them.”
“I’ll confirm later today.”
“Great, Mike, and thanks.”
Joan buzzed him.
“Yes?”
“There’s somebody called Deputy Chief Inspector Holmes on line two. He’s been holding.”
“Got it.” Stone punched the button. “Hello, Inspector, sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Quite all right,” Holmes said. “I’ve something of a problem, and I hope you can help.”
“Certainly, if I can.”
“I wish to speak to Sir Charles Bourne, and I can’t locate him. Major Bugg says he’s out of the country, but he doesn’t know where. Do you know?”
“The man’s on his honeymoon, Inspector, leave him alone.”
“I don’t want you to think me unromantic, Mr. Barrington, but I wish to speak with him now.”
“Then I suppose you’ll just have to wait until he comes home. He won’t be hard to find.”
“Then you don’t know where he is?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help, Inspector.”
“I’ve some reason to think he might be in France.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“You know, the French police have a very good system of tracking hotel guests. I could phone them and know in an hour or two what hotel he’s staying in.”
“What a good idea. Why don’t you do that?”
“Thank you, I will.” He hung up, miffed.
Stone called his Paris house and got Marie, the housekeeper, on the phone, and she put Sir Charles on. “Hello there, Stone. What a wonderful house! We’re enjoying ourselves immensely.”
“I’m very glad to hear it,” Stone said. “I thought you should know that I’ve had a call from Deputy Chief Inspector Holmes, inquiring of your whereabouts. He seems anxious to talk with you.”
“Well, bugger him,” Charles said. “Doesn’t the man know I’m on my honeymoon?”
“I mentioned that to him, but he was persistent. He’s having the French police find out what hotel you’re staying in.”
Charles laughed heartily. “He won’t have much luck there, will he?”
“You might give him a ring when you get home, Charles.”
“Oh, all right, I will. In the meantime, I have a lot more honeymooning to do.”
Stone hung up, and Joan buzzed again. “Mike Freeman on one.”
“Mike?”
“How about Friday evening, late—say eleven o’clock? That will put them there early Saturday morning.”
“I think that might work out very well,” Stone said. “They’re going to a movie earlier.”
“No later than midnight, though, and you’ll arrange customs at your airfield?”
“I will.” Stone gave him the identifier for the field. “And thank you, Mike. Once again, I owe you.” Stone hung up and called Peter on his cell. “I’ve got you a free ride across the pond, departing Teterboro at eleven PM Friday. Is that good for you?”
“It’s perfect, thanks.”
“You’ll be landing on the estate, and I’ll have you met.”
“There’ll be six of us. Billy and his wife are coming, too.”
“Oh, good. See you tomorrow evening.” He hung up, feeling he had done a good day’s work.
16
Stone and Susan Blackburn arrived at Patroon to find Dino and Viv already there. He made the introductions.
“And what brings you to New York, Susan?” Viv asked.
“Stone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I also have a few clients here, and I thought I’d see if I could drum up some business.”
“We’re delighted to meet you.”
“And I’m delighted to be here.”
“Has Ben called you?” Stone asked Dino.
“This afternoon,” Dino replied. “I understand we’re all having dinner tomorrow evening, and we have a screening on Friday.”
&nbs
p; “That’s right, and they’re all flying to England Friday night, after the screening.”
“How did you talk Peter into that?”
“I told him I had a setting for a film for him, and he told me he was already working on one. Mike Freeman is putting him on one of Strategic Service’s airplanes.” They ordered drinks, and Stone told them about the visit from Billy Barnett. “It seemed like a good idea to get them out of the country for a while.”
“How long a while?”
“At least a couple of weeks. I told them I’d join them then.” He turned to Susan. “If you can stand New York and me for that long, I’ll fly you back.”
“I can stand you both,” she said. “I’ll talk with my office and see if I can decorate houses on the phone for that long.”
“Are the guest rooms in the house fit for occupancy?”
“I’ll see that they are, and I’ve already ordered your electric beds. They’ll be there for you when you return.”
“Dino, can you get away again?”
“Absolutely not, but Viv can go, if she likes.”
“I’ll see if I can arrange some business to require my presence,” Viv said. “The hell with Dino.”
“I finally had the unavoidable chat with the mayor,” Dino said. “Some pointed questions were asked about the necessity of being in Rome.”
“And I’m sure you were ready with the answers,” Stone said.
“He’d already heard most of it, and he took it well. Anyway, he hasn’t fired me yet.”
They ordered dinner.
“I’ve heard some things about this Dr. Don,” Dino said. “He’s made it onto a couple of watch lists.”
“Do you think he’s dangerous?” Stone asked.
“Well, one magazine reporter is dead—his car blew up on the L.A. freeway shortly after his article on this cult appeared.”
“Is that what they are? A cult?”
“They’re the fanatical followers of a charismatic religious figure. What else would you call them?”
“You have a point.”
“Peter and Ben’s movie is opening in twelve hundred theaters,” Dino pointed out. “Nobody can cover all of them.”
“I’m glad you’re getting the kids out of the country,” Viv said.
After dinner, the ladies excused themselves.
“I need to talk to you about Billy Barnett,” Dino said.
“Okay.”
“I’ve done some checking on his background, and although I can’t prove it yet, I think he might very well be Teddy Fay. And if I get to the point where I can prove it, I’m going to have to do something about it. Fay is a wanted man.”
“Not anymore,” Stone said.
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s not wanted anymore. Run the name through your system and see what you come up with.”
Dino took out his iPhone, entered an app, and tapped in the name. “Zilch,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“I can tell you only if it stops here.”
“All right.”
“I asked Will Lee to give him a presidential pardon when he was on his way out of office. It was issued sealed, for reasons of national security, and his name was scrubbed from every law enforcement and national security database. Nobody can touch him now.”
“That’s the craziest thing I ever heard,” Dino said.
“It’s crazy, until you consider that he saved the lives of my son and yours in L.A. You and I both owe him.”
Dino shrugged. “I guess we do. You’re sure about the pardon and the databases?”
“You want to try a few more before the girls come back?”
“No, I’ll take your word for it.”
“You’ll get used to the idea, Dino. I have.”
“I expect I will.”
—
The following morning after making love and having breakfast, Susan disappeared into her dressing room for a few minutes, then came back. “Okay, I can stay on for a while. I’ll fly back with you and Viv a week from Saturday, but I absolutely must be in London on the following Monday morning for a meeting with an important prospect.”
“Wonderful. We’re having dinner tonight with the kids at the Four Seasons, and Friday we’re going to a screening of Peter and Ben’s new movie. They’re off to England after the movie, and we’ll fly a week later. It’s a shorter flight going back, because of the winds. We might be able to make it nonstop from St. John’s.”
“Wonderful. I can do some things for one of my clients while I’m here, then have the fabrics shipped from London. I have a source here that can do the installations.”
“Do you have other international clients?”
“I do, but I try to keep the number down. The travel gets wearing. There’s something in the works that may decrease my workload, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I have a software group in London that is working on a package that will allow me to send an assistant to a site to photograph the rooms, then I can go online and select from a host of wallpaper and paint colors and combinations and show the client what his room will look like—I can even insert furniture and fabrics into the picture. At least that’s the intended outcome. It’s an expensive project, because it’s being done exclusively for me. When it’s perfected, I can license it to other designers with their own sets of fabrics, et cetera, and make money on the investment.”
“That’s a very smart move,” Stone said.
“I’ve been designing fabrics, rugs, and wallpaper for years, so I have hundreds that are exclusive to me, but I can also draw on other sources, if necessary.”
“How big a staff do you have?”
“About thirty, including the new upholstery firm I bought last year. That allows me to do projects much more quickly, instead of waiting in line at other firms. Charles’s account was what allowed me to make that investment. Now that we’ve finished his furniture, we have to get more into the pipeline to keep our people busy.”
“Who does your business planning?”
“I do.”
“My firm has a substantial London office that can help you with that—everything from real estate acquisitions to financing. You should be planning years ahead and copyrighting your designs, too, if you haven’t already.”
“I’ve been meaning to do that for a long time, I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
“You need a business structure that will allow you to delegate more authority.”
“I have a wonderful assistant who’s doing a lot of the work now.”
“Maybe you need three or four assistants who can do that, then you can sit at your computer anywhere in the world and look at their suggestions, then make final decisions on what to propose to clients.”
“Perhaps I should meet with your firm when I get back to London?”
“I’ll set that up, if you like.”
“I would like that very much.”
—
Stone went down to his office and called Bill Eggers. “I think I have a new client for you in London,” he said.
“You’re just looking for excuses to use your new house,” Eggers said.
“There is that, but what we’re talking about is one of Britain’s very best interior designers, named Susan Blackburn, who could expand her operation worldwide, but she needs solid business planning, financing, copyright work, and everything else a company needs for expansion. She’ll be back in London a week from Monday. Perhaps you could ask Julian Whately to put together a team to evaluate her needs, then draw up a business plan.”
“You talked me into it,” Eggers said. “Whately is due here next week, anyway. We’re reevaluating our own business needs in London, including some hiring and new offices.”
“Maybe you’d like t
o meet with her before they both go back to London.”
“She’s here? I should have known. Sure, let’s set that up. By the way, Herb Fisher is going to be ready for us to close on the Connecticut house by the end of the week. I hope nothing goes wrong—the wife is already looking for a designer.”
“Maybe she’d like to have Susan take a look at the house while she’s in town.”
“I expect she would.”
“Then I’ll set that up, too.”
17
That evening they met at the Four Seasons for dinner. Stone chose the menu, and they dined very well indeed. Afterward, Billy Barnett took Stone aside.
“I don’t know how you managed to get the boys out of the country so quickly, but I’m glad you did.”
“Let’s just say that their interests and mine coincided. Have them get packed before the screening, so that they can leave the theater and go straight to Teterboro for the flight. You’ll be landing on my property and clearing customs there, too. There will be some Strategic Services people on board, as well, who will be continuing on to London with ground transportation. The airplane will continue on to Paris and overnight there, then fly some other Strategic Services people back to New York.”
“Sounds like a large airplane.”
“It’s a Gulfstream 650.”
“How long is your landing strip?”
“Seven thousand feet. It was an RAF base during World War Two.”
“That should handle just about anything.”
“Have you heard anything more about the Chosen Few?”
“I found out how they’re financing themselves. Dr. Don has written a series of books based on conspiracy theories about government encroachment on individual rights.”
“Why have I not seen them advertised?”
“Because they’re sold only on the Chosen Few website. He gets thirty to forty bucks a book and sells tens of thousands around the country. They make documentary films of the same nature, too, and sell them on DVDs. Dr. Don is bringing in millions a year, and he doesn’t have a lot of overhead. There’s no church, they rent venues for large meetings, and he only has enough staff to count the money. There are rumors that he has a large vault in his house and keeps most of the cash there.”