Stone Cold

by David Baldacci

  Stone walked over to the cliffs with the agent tagging along. “Then he went out this way. Probably came in the same way.”

  The agent looked down. “That’s sheer rock, a good thirty feet.”

  “It’s not sheer. There’re plenty of handholds if you know where to look.”

  “Okay, you climb up. But what about the going down part?”

  “Well, since I don’t see anything around here you could attach a rope to, I’m assuming he jumped.”

  The agent gazed at the swirling water far below. “That’s impossible.”

  “Not really.” Stone thought, Actually, I did the same thing thirty years ago. Only it was fifty feet up and there were people shooting at me.

  Stone drove back to D.C. with Alex.

  “Not a bad morning’s work,” Alex said appreciatively.

  “Knowing how it was done and finding out who did it are two very different things. Carter Gray had a lot of enemies.”

  “Granted, but don’t you have any guesses? I mean he had to have some reason to want to meet with you.”

  Stone hesitated. He didn’t like keeping things back from Alex, but sometimes honest disclosure, even for good reasons, turned out to be a bad decision. “I don’t believe it’s connected.”

  He could tell Alex didn’t buy this statement, but he chose not to add to it.

  As they drove on Stone stared out the window. Three men he’d worked with decades ago were suddenly all dead. Carter Gray had met to warn him about this strange chain of events. The very night of that warning he had been blown up. Whoever had done this had found three deeply covered, highly skilled former assassins and murdered them. And then he had succeeded in killing Carter Gray, a man who had few peers when it came to outwitting the competition.

  A person smart enough to do all that could conceivably discover who Oliver Stone really was. And come and kill him too.

  And maybe I would deserve it, Stone thought. Because the only thing he had in common with the dead men was that they were all former killers themselves.

  CHAPTER 18

  ANNABELLE STOOD OUTSIDE the gates of the cemetery where Stone was caretaker. After her talk with Leo and her conversation with Stone, she had made up her mind. This was not Oliver Stone’s fight. Friend or not, she could not allow him to get involved. If Bagger somehow killed him, Annabelle knew she could not live with that guilt.

  The gates were locked, but with a tension tool and lock pick two minutes later they were open and she was on the front porch of the cottage. She slipped the note she had taken nearly an hour to compose, despite its brevity, under the door. A minute later she was back in her car. Three hours later she was riding into the sky inside a United Airlines jet. As the plane tracked the Potomac River on the climb out, Annabelle glanced out the window. Georgetown was directly below them. She thought she could see the little well-tended cemetery, his cemetery. Perhaps he was down there amid the hallowed ground working away at his tombstones, attending to the dead and buried, atoning for past sins.

  “So long, Oliver Stone,” she said to herself. Good-bye, John Carr.

  “I love this Internet crap,” Bagger bellowed as he stared at the papers one of his IT guys had just handed to him.

  “It is quite amazing, Mr. Bagger,” the young bespectacled man began in an immodest tone. “And frankly—”

  “Get the hell outta here,” Bagger roared and the terrified man fled.

  Bagger sat down behind his desk and studied the papers again. He’d retained an Internet search organization. He didn’t know what their sources were and he didn’t really care. They had delivered, that’s all that mattered. Annabelle Conroy had walked down the aisle, over fifteen years ago, with a guy named Jonathan DeHaven. They had been married, ironically Bagger thought, in Vegas. The downside was there were no pictures of the happy couple, only the names. It had to be the same Annabelle Conroy, how many people getting married in Sin City would have that name? But he had to be sure. So Bagger picked up his phone and called a PI firm he had used in the past. These folks worked right on the edge of the envelope and occasionally skirted past that barrier. He loved them for it, and also because they got results. He would have put them onto Annabelle before now, but he wanted a piece of information for them to start with, and now he had it. When people got married they signed lots of documents. And they had to live somewhere and get things like insurance, and utilities and maybe wills and cars in both the names.

  He chuckled. Annabelle had posed as a CIA operative when running her scam on him. Well, he would show the lady what real intelligence was.

  He said into the phone, “Hey, Joe, it’s Jerry Bagger, got a job for you. A really, really important job. I need to find an old friend. And I need to do it fast because I want to wrap my arms around her and give the lady a nice big squeeze.”

  CHAPTER 19

  WHEN STONE ARRIVED back home he saw the note. Instinctively knowing what it was before he even opened it, he still took his time reading through it. When he was done he sat back and sighed deeply. Then he got angry. He called Reuben, Milton and Caleb. He told them there would be a meeting of the Camel Club that night at his cottage. Though Caleb whined about having to work late to finish a project, Stone insisted that he be there. “It’s important, Caleb. It has to do with our friend.”

  “Which friend?” he’d said suspiciously.

  “Susan.”

  “Is she in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll be there,” Caleb said without hesitation.

  Stone spent the next few hours working in the cemetery, shoring up old tombstones that always seemed to lose their grip on the earth after a rainstorm no matter how many times he straightened and reinforced them. He was not merely doing busy work. He wanted to get something that had been buried for a long time, both in the ground and also in his mind.

  The old tombstone had a statue of an eagle perched on top. Pretending to be trying to straighten the headstone in case anyone was watching, Stone let it fall to the ground as though by accident. Revealed underneath was a small hole in the dirt. In this hole was a rectangular-shaped airtight metal box. Stone lifted the box out and placed it in the trash bag he was using to collect weeds. He left the tombstone on its side, dusted off his hands and went inside the cottage with the bag.

  At his desk he opened the box with a key he kept taped behind the light switch panel in his tiny bathroom. He spread the box’s contents out in front of him. This was his insurance policy, in case anyone ever came looking to do him harm. Stone had been smart enough to know that what he was being asked to do for his country could be seen, from another perspective, as simply crimes done under the flimsy banner of counterintelligence. He had been told on countless occasions that if he or his team members were ever caught during one of their missions, they couldn’t rely on Uncle Sam to bail them out. They were on their own. To young men possessing special skills and insane levels of confidence that had seemed like a challenge they couldn’t refuse.

  He and men like Lou Cincetti and Bob Cole had often joked, in sessions of gallows humor, that if their capture seemed imminent they would each simply shoot the other, fittingly leaving the world together, as a team. Yet as the years passed and the killings went on, Stone had started collecting information and documentation from these “tasks.” Uncle Sam could say he wouldn’t be there for him, but it was another thing altogether if Stone could hold his agency accountable. In the end none of it had mattered, though. His wife had died, his daughter was lost to him and the people who’d ordered his destruction, simply because he didn’t want to kill anymore, had never suffered a single minute for it.

  Stone stared at one photo for a long time. It was from Vietnam when he’d still been a soldier, albeit one with highly specialized skills. He had been given the assignment of assassinating a North Vietnamese politician, a man the enemy had been rallying around. Normally, long-range sniping was done by a team. You had lookouts and spotters and people to check the
wind and other weather conditions. However, Stone had been sent in alone, charged with a task that even for him seemed impossible. He would be dropped by chopper into a jungle crawling with Viet Cong. He was to travel five miles by foot over dangerous terrain and kill the man at a rally that would be attended by over ten thousand people, with massive military security. He was then to reverse his tracks and travel miles back to an assigned spot that would be difficult to find in the daylight, much less at night. The chopper would be there precisely four hours after dropping him off. It would make one pass. If he wasn’t back in time, Stone was target practice for the Viet Cong.

  Ostensibly he’d been chosen for what amounted to a suicide mission because he was the best they had; the finest shooter and the most tireless in the field, it was generally acknowledged. Back then Stone was a machine. He could run all day and night. He had been dropped into the South China Sea from a chopper once, and swam miles through rough water to kill someone deemed hostile to the United States. From half a mile away he’d placed a shot through the man’s head while he sat at his kitchen table reading the newspaper and smoking a cigarette. Then he’d swum back out and been picked up by a sub.

  Yet with the assignment in Vietnam Stone had suspected his superiors were making a statement about his increasingly reluctant attitude about the war. Some of them were no doubt praying he would fail. And die. He hadn’t accommodated them that night. He had killed the politician from a challenging distance even for a top sniper using a scope that expert marksmen today would have laughed at. Stone had made it back to the clearing to find the chopper about to turn off after its single pass. He knew the pilots had seen him but apparently couldn’t be bothered to come back to get him. He put a heavy-caliber round right through the open cargo doors to show them the error of their ways.

  They had landed, only momentarily, but enough to allow him to jump on the skids. As the chopper flew off, shots poured at them from the jungle below. Stone had run that night like never before in his life. Yet, still, he hadn’t been that far ahead of a battalion of angry North Vietnamese. It had been that successful assignment that had garnered the attention of the CIA, and resulted in his induction into the “esteemed group” of government assassins known as the Triple Six Division.

  The Triple Six was a component that even most people at the Agency didn’t realize existed. They probably slept better for not knowing. Yet every “civilized” country had its assassins who did things to protect their national interests, and America was certainly entitled to hers. At least that was the company line.

  Stone turned to another piece of paper with some names on it and a photo attached. They were Stone, Bob Cole, Lou Cincetti, Roger Simpson, Judd Bingham and Carter Gray. This was the only photo he knew of that had all six men in it. And it had only been possible because, after a particularly difficult mission, they had all gone out and gotten drunk as soon as the plane touched back down on American soil. As Stone looked into his mostly unlined face from decades ago, a killer’s confident face that had no idea of the personal hardship and loss to come, he felt a heaviness in his chest.

  He squinted at the picture of the tall, elegant man that Roger Simpson had been back then. Simpson had never been a field agent; instead, like Carter Gray, he’d orchestrated the activities of Stone and the others from a relatively safe distance. He had gone on to the political arena where he was still tall, still handsome. However, the ambitious streak he possessed that had seemed a very positive attribute when he was younger had turned him over three decades later into a devious plotter and a man who never forgot a slight no matter how trivial. Not content merely to be one of a hundred senators, he desperately wanted the presidency, and had worked long and hard to win it. And when the term of the current president ended, it seemed that Simpson was indeed a front-runner to take his place. His wife, a former Miss Alabama, gave him a glamour quotient that the somewhat stiff Simpson could never have inspired himself. It was discreetly and anonymously bandied about that Mrs. Simpson didn’t really enjoy her husband’s company all that much. Yet apparently she wanted to be First Lady badly enough to play along.

  Stone had always considered Simpson a weak-willed, backstabbing prick. That such a man was in position to capture the top office in the land in a few short years merely reinforced Stone’s already low opinion of American politics.

  He put the items back in the box and returned it to the hole, setting the monument back in place. While he waited for someone to possibly come and kill him, he would focus on ensuring that Annabelle Conroy stayed among the living, even if she said she didn’t want his help.

  He had lost his daughter. He was not going to lose Annabelle.

  CHAPTER 20

  THE CAMEL CLUB MET that night at eight o’clock at Stone’s cottage. As usual, Milton brought his laptop and pecked on the keys, while Caleb sat anxiously in a rickety chair and Reuben leaned against a wall.

  Stone told them about Susan’s dilemma and also that she had left town.

  “Well, damn,” Reuben said. “We never even got to go out for a drink.”

  Stone explained, “Jerry Bagger probably killed those people in Portugal and left her partner for dead. She needs our help, but feels it would put us in too much danger.”

  Caleb squared his shoulders. “She obviously doesn’t know that this group absolutely revels in danger.”

  Stone cleared his throat. “Yes, well, my original plan had been to investigate this Jerry Bagger and see if we could work to have him put in prison.”

  “A good plan in theory, but how do we do it for real?” Reuben said.

  “I thought it might be worthwhile to go up to Atlantic City and check him out.”

  Milton said, “Here’s a picture of him. The Pompeii Casino has its own Web site.”

  Caleb looked at Bagger smiling up from the computer screen and moaned fearfully. “Good God, look at that face; those eyes. He’s clearly a mobster, Oliver. You don’t go and check out mobsters.”

  Reuben eyed Stone. “It might be a little dicey going to his home turf.”

  “It’s only for information gathering,” Stone said. “No confrontations at all. Just observing and perhaps talking to a few people who might be helpful.”

  “But if this Bagger person finds out? He might come after us!” Caleb said.

  “What happened to you reveling in danger, Caleb?” Reuben reminded him.

  Caleb retorted, “This man kills people, probably for jollies.”

  “The good news is you don’t have to go, Caleb,” Stone said. He turned to the other two. “I thought Milton and Reuben could do the first recon; that is if Reuben can get some time off from the dock.”

  “I can always find an excuse not to go lug big shit off big trucks for not-so-big bucks.”

  Milton said simply, “Sounds good.”

  “Sounds good?” Caleb exclaimed. “Milton, this man is dangerous. He’s a casino operator, for God sakes,” he added in a hiss. “He makes money off people’s addictions. I bet he’s involved in drugs too. And prostitution!” He ended with a dramatic flourish.

  “You need to be careful,” Stone warned. “No unnecessary risks.”

  “Understood,” Reuben said. “I can pick Milton up in the truck tomorrow morning.”

  “And while you’re doing that, I’m going to track down Susan. She’s checked out of her hotel, but I have some ideas.”

  “So what am I supposed to do while the three of you are out gallivanting around?” Caleb asked.

  “Just the usual stuff, Superman,” Reuben said. “Keeping the nation’s capital safe for truth, justice and the American way.”

  Stone said, “Oh, Caleb, I need to borrow your car. I doubt Susan’s still in the city so I’ll have to travel.”

  Caleb stared at him in alarm. “You want to borrow my car? My car! That’s impossible.” Caleb’s ride was an ancient pewter gray Nova with an eternally rattling tailpipe. It had more rust than metal, more springs than upholstery, no working heat or AC, an
d the man treated it as though the wreck were a vintage Bentley.

  “Just give him the keys,” Reuben growled.

  “Then how will I get home tonight?”

  “I’ll drive you on my motorcycle.”

  “I refuse to ride in that death trap.”

  Reuben gave him such a ferocious look that Caleb hastily pulled out his car keys and handed them to Stone. “Then again, there’s nothing wrong with trying new things.”

  Caleb said suddenly, “Oliver, do you even have a driver’s license?”

  “Yes, but unfortunately it’s been expired for over twenty years.”

  Caleb paled. “But that means you can’t drive legally.”

  “That’s right. But given the seriousness of what we’re doing I knew you’d understand.”

  Stone left Caleb standing there openmouthed and moved over to Reuben, who was motioning to him from the front door.

  Reuben spoke in a low voice. “Carter Gray’s house was blown up with him in it.”

  “I was aware of it.”

  “I hope not too aware.”

  “The FBI has already spent time with me. I went out to Gray’s house or what’s left of it with a pair of agents and Alex Ford and gave them the benefit of my thoughts.”

  “Murder?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  Reuben said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with, you know, your past?” He was the only member of the Camel Club who remotely had any knowledge of what Stone had done decades ago.

  “I hope not. I’ll see you when you get back from Atlantic City. Remember, keep a low profile.”